From the Chrysalis (32 page)

Liza stayed with Dace all the first day, walking beside him on his father’s farm. They carted beers around and he smoked continually, except when he was touching her. Like the old Devereux homestead, this property was also called “The Farm”, even though the barn was empty besides the dog. As of the third week of April, fifty acres of prime land were still unplowed.
 

“When Dad brought me home last night in his car, I was almost too scared to get out. Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” Dace confided. “But now I can’t go back inside the house. I’ve been out here since dawn except when I spoke to you on the phone. The light, Liza. The light is so incredible I thought I was gonna go blind. I saw a gopher, six kinds of birds, squirrels … and the mayflowers are already out in the bush. It’s too soon, isn’t it? Come see,” he said, pulling her hand so eagerly that she laughed.
He’s like a kid, a great big kid,
she thought, almost swelling with maternal pride. “This is the first time I’ve been to the new house, but this farm is already more familiar to me than the streets in Maitland ever were.”
 

“The alleys, you mean,” she joked, pointing at some cardinals in the pine trees sheltering the patio by the house. She loved their song. “Have you forgotten your old buddies too?”

“Well, what do you think?” he asked, veering off the new grass into a budding maple copse. He tilted her face up towards his and kissed her so hard on the mouth that she gasped. “I probably shouldn’t kiss a cousin like that, but …”

“I think you’re a loyal person,” she responded, her eyes sliding back to the brick house where Uncle Norm was retrieving burgers from the grill on his patio. Her hands remained planted on Dace’s chest. “Too loyal, some might say. Is Rick Lowery out too?”

They were hidden by the trees now. “No,” he said, his face dark until he kissed her eyelids then moved his lips to her neck. “My God. You smell so sweet. Are you wearing that stuff you put on your letters? Or is it your own special scent?”

“It’s just me, I think. I showered and dressed so fast that I forgot. I was in the shower, three minutes tops. Dace, how do men in prison wait so long?” she whispered into his neck, unable to meet his eyes.
 

“For this, you mean?” he asked, almost crushing her against his chest. “Sweetheart, I’m surprised you waited so long to ask.”

“It seemed a little prurient.”

“Prurient? What’s that? How do they wait? I don’t know. I lived on dreams, I suppose. Most of us did. We thought about the future, you know. What we would do when we got out.”

“And got into fights?”

Dace thrust her a little way from him then, seizing both her wrists and pushing her hard against the nearest tree. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t protest. “Are you suggesting I substituted? My dear, I’m surprised at you. Next thing you’ll be asking if I got it on with some guy.”

“No … no, I wouldn’t,” she stuttered, but searched his face, almost sure he was joking.

“Why not?”

“Uh, because you just lifted my skirt.”

“That’s not all I’d like to do.”

“Oh, Dace, I know you haven’t in forever, but do you really think we should?” Nothing was ever simple. He needed her, needed her so much, and that was a powerful aphrodisiac for her.
 

“I know. We’re cousins,
for God’s sake
,” he mimicked his father. “Please don’t start that again. And while we’re on the subject, I don’t care about your past, the same way you don’t care about mine. I’m home now. Everything is going to be all right,” he promised. He took her arm and tugged her deeper into the bush where even Uncle Norm’s collie would have trouble finding them.
 

“Where are we going?”

“Tut, tut. I’ve lost my way,” he said, his arm resting on her shoulders, his eyes scanning the nearly naked trees.
 

He talked continuously, as if he couldn’t stop once he’d started. Maybe he didn’t know his way around the farm, but he could still remember Christie Pits. He wanted to go back there soon. Everybody said Toronto was jumping. Yorkville was alive with action, and come summer there would be music at the Riverboat and in the streets. Sure, he’d heard about Yorkville when he was in the Joint. You didn’t have to be a hippy, you know, although a long-haired little girl like her might pass. The Gas Works and Abbey Road would probably have lots of music, too. She didn’t know where those clubs were? Well, they’d find them together. What a goddamn sin Janis Joplin died just last year. But Bruce Cockburn and Joni Mitchell would be playing and maybe even that sap Gordon Lightfoot she liked so much, although he was usually at Massey Hall.
Pussy willows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses…
Also, he was willing to bet, there would be lots of other good stuff because wherever musicians went …

“Grass, you mean?” she asked, emboldened because she had smoked the stuff with Mel once or twice in his car.
 

“Maybe.” He smiled down at the top of her head, his eyes shifting to the side.

“What about your parole officer?” she asked. Her hands slid underneath his shirt.

“I haven’t met her yet,” he said. His breath was coming quicker now and her heart pounded. His skin was soft on her fingertips, hard against her hands. “But I’ll bet she’s a busy lady, too busy for the likes of me.”

“Really? But if you …”
 

“Liza, little Liza, you worry too much. My Dad needs me, so I’ll probably just stay with him until you’re sprung. Don’t you want to finish your degree?”

“Sure, but I’ve got two more years if I do a general B.A. It feels like a sentence after today.”

A shadow crossed his face. “Baby, you have no idea what a sentence feels like. You’ll never know, a girl like you. Now look here. Everything’s going to be all right,” he promised again. His hands pushed her white sweater down to her elbows and lifted her breasts from the halter of her dress. He kissed each one in turn, making her gasp. “Let me. I’ll show you. I’ll get a job when you go back to school this fall. And that will have the added bonus of keeping Miss Parole Officer off my back.”

“D’Arcy! Liza!” Uncle Norm called.
 

“A bit of a pest, isn’t he?” Liza said, no longer the least bit nervous. She was loathe to leave his hands.

Chapter 22

I Want You

Near Maitland, May 1972:

Later she remembered the early Maitland summer, awash in green and gold. If she didn’t remember the exact date they’d first made love, at least she never forgot the occasion. It was soon after he’d been released. He couldn’t wait, she couldn’t wait, and
oh my God
, she was so relieved to have him home, home for good. She remembered the golden showers of maple florets as they fell and stuck in their hair, so maybe it had still been May. His Harley lay on its side against a fallen elm trunk.
It’s all right, it’s all right,
she kept thinking, feeling his pull in spite of her own misgivings. By now her only real concern was that his lovemaking might fail to meet her wildest expectations, the ones she had never even admitted to herself.
 

In short, she was afraid he’d been in prison so long he might have forgotten
how
to make love. What happened to a man who spent so much time in jail? What if he got impotent or something? Like Popeye in Faulkner’s
Sanctuary
, a criminal whose behaviour was never really explained. Or like Clyde Barrow in
Bonnie and Clyde
? Although that was just a movie. Maybe in real life he
had
been able to perform. But what if she had to …? She wasn’t sure what to do.
 

Beyond that, she was afraid he might be reluctant to commit to her for the simple, bourgeois reason that he was her cousin. What he said and what he felt deep down inside might be two different things. Sometimes she was like that too, but right now she was past caring. She was almost twenty and ready this time. She had never wanted anybody so much.

Naturally she didn’t mention any doubts about his prowess or his commitment. He’d come too far. In the bush at the farm, she’d decided he could have whatever he wanted, and how lucky, how
wonderful
if he wanted her. She had to say something though, so she blathered about their blood ties instead.

“Imagine the complications if we were brother and sister,” Dace said, plucking a maple floret from her hair. “But we aren’t.” Winding her long hair around his hand, he pulled her head back and tripped her, his arms breaking her fall. She fell beneath him onto the sun-warmed ground, her eyes picking out bits of blue sky overhead. The trees were leafy, and as far as she could see, there wasn’t a cloud in the lattice of their branches.

She closed her eyes, nervous, no matter how much she wanted him. It had been a long time for her, too. Almost three years. God help her, she was practically a virgin again. He was, too.
 

“I’m afraid,” she confessed.
What if it’s not as good as I dreamed?

“You think too much,” he whispered into the base of her throat. “Open up and let yourself go.” She loved his urgency. She stopped trying to second guess herself, although having got this far, now she was afraid it might hurt. He was growing against her, so focused, so huge.

“Dace …” she tried to say.

“Shut up,” he said, covering her mouth with his hand. He was up her long jean skirt and inside her in less than sixty seconds. “Take all of me,” he whispered, as if he had to tell her. Heat spread like lava, racing from her head to her toes. She wrapped her long legs around his waist, doing everything she could to help. Take all of
me
, she thought, arching her back.
 

Belatedly he started undressing her, then himself, absolving her of all responsibility. She liked it that way, so she lay back with her arms flung over her head and did what she was told. He moved slowly at first, now that he was in, but after a couple of minutes he plunged deeper, picking up speed.
 

“I can’t,” she thought she heard him say, his mouth full of one of her elongated nipples. There was a noise from the bush, the crack of a branch. She opened her eyes. A small animal, maybe. And water ran nearby in a thicket of flowering dogwood. Nobody was there, though. Really.
 

“Liza,” he groaned, coming almost immediately, his mouth where she liked it, on her throat.

“Stay,” she demanded, wrapping her arms around him. Now that her clothes had been removed, it was as if more than her body had been freed. She would do whatever he wanted, whatever he said. They had always been part of each other and now they were both part of the air, the sky. She ran her hands up and down his muscular torso, her fingers searching his smooth, tight skin for all his scars, those signs he’d been invincible and was invincible still, that he would always be here.

Her own unmarred body, usually unisex in a T-shirt and jeans, was large-breasted, small-waisted, and nearly perfect. It must have been, because when he rolled off her, he kissed every inch until his mouth settled on a small spot to which nobody had ever paid much attention before. Not Tony, anyway.
 

Not even her. Somehow it hadn’t seemed right, and she had never been sure exactly what to do. Her eyes flew open at his touch and she tried to push him away, but he seized both her hands in one of his and held them firmly. He lifted his head from time to time to observe her reaction, wearing a cocky smile on his face.
 

She closed her eyes, letting him take her to a place she had never imagined before. What was happening? A flutter rose in her groin, sending a rush of warmth to her chest.
Butterfly,
she almost said, then the feeling spread down, igniting the walls of the place where he’d been so that they opened and closed, over and over, fast and hard. She clamped her mouth shut, still unsure about what was going on. All she knew was when she peeked, Dace was looking rather pleased with himself. Then …
Petals,
she thought as her body arched towards the sky and her toes curled into the ground.
It’s me! I’m blooming.