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“Then he said if that was any man’s idea of hell, he could do without heaven. And he told me ...” Rye stopped in midsentence, and his hand moved toward that secret place again.

  But she stopped it, demanding, “What did he tell you?” She saw Rye color and look away. Somewhere in the loft the cat made a soft sound.

  At last Rye looked at her again and drew a deep breath. “How to do things.”

  She stared at him speechlessly and suddenly knew an overwhelming fright at these mysteries to which Rye was now privy.

  She sat up abruptly. “It’s getting close to supper time. Mother will be expecting me.” Then she was on her feet and heading for the door before he could detain her. He sat up, too, raising one knee and draping an elbow across it. “Meet me here tomorrow after supper,” he said quietly, studying her back as she hesitated with her hand on the doorknob.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re going to Aunt Nora’s.”

  “The next night, then.”

  “We’re going to get in trouble, Rye!”

  “No we’re not.”

  “How do you know?"

  “ ’Cause I found out from Charles.”

  But nothing made sense to Laura, for trouble was only a vague notion in her mind. When she’d said the word she’d only meant that by hanging around up here, they risked getting caught. But she sensed he meant something else.

  “You afraid, Laura?” Rye asked.

  “No ... yes ... I don’t think I can come.” Then she went out quickly and slammed the door.

  But nature’s curiosity ran rife through Laura’s changing body. That night as she lay in bed, she recalled Rye’s touch—his touch, oh his touch, what it had done to her!—and brushed her palms over her breasts, trying to recapture the exquisite sensation of Rye’s rough fingers. But her own were somehow incompetent and left her wanting. She ran her fingers down to test the entrance to her virginity and found it sleek at the very thought of Rye. What would he teach her if she met him tomorrow night? So many mysteries, yet one thing was sure. Touching herself left her filled only with the longing to be touched instead by Rye. He’d be waiting at the boathouse, she knew, and the thought of advancing the next step with him filled her with queer feelings she both welcomed and resisted.

  The following day crept by like a decade, but when at last the appointed time came, Laura was there before Rye, sitting on a rolled up tarp with the cat on her lap. When footsteps sounded on the outside stair, her heart hammered in trepidation. Suppose it was somebody else—old man Hardesty maybe, or ... or ...

  But it was Rye, wearing a clean muslin shirt and black straight-legged pants with brass buttons, his hair freshly combed, his boots gleaming from an unaccustomed polishing.

  This time their eyes met steadily, holding deep while he stood at the door, some ten feet distant from her perch. The evening shadows were long; only the lip of the window ledge was limned in gold. Already the loft felt secure and familiar.

  “Hi,” he greeted quietly.

  A smile broke upon her face. “Hi.”

  Her heart thrilled at the sight of him. Her body welled with anticipation. But she scratched the cat’s jaw with feigned poise while he crossed and sat down on the hard canvas roll beside her. His fingers, too, reached to stroke the cat and, as with that first time, touched Laura’s accidentally, then not so accidentally until finally they stopped making excuses and clasped hands tightly, both of them staring at his thumb as it rubbed the base of hers.

  With one accord their gazes were lifted and their eyes met, and Laura felt a great impatience to learn more of what Charles had told Rye. Her brown eyes were wide, her lips open with womanly waiting, while Rye squeezed her hand so hard she felt the soft skin bruise. He tipped his head aside and she lifted her face, eyelids closing as their lips met in a tender first hello, the fragile touch of a moth’s wing against an evening leaf.

  Rye pulled back his head and their eyes met again, filled with longing and uncertainty and the absolute awareness of sin.

  “Laura,” he croaked.

  “Rye, I’m still scared.”

  She flung her arms around his neck and felt his smooth jaw against her temple while they clung, perched like two gulls on a yardarm. He slid to the floor and tugged her along, both of them resting on their sides, facing each other while their eager lips and arms held fast. They kissed with fiery impatience, bringing their breasts and hips together as hard as nature allowed, until Rye’s hand slowly moved from her shoulder blade to her breast, caressing it through thin spring cotton, making it bud like the lilacs outside their lofty nest. She rolled forward against his palm, then back, like a body being sucked and pushed by breakers on a shore, until finally his hand went down to her waist, where it lingered, garnering courage before finally drifting down her petticoats to lift them during long minutes of expectation.

  Every inch of the way she knew she should stop him, remind him again of hell. But instead, she breathed harder and made the way clear and unencumbered. He touched her bare leg and she did nothing. He touched the hem of her pantaloons and still she did nothing. He unbuttoned the waist and she stretched acquiescently.

  Then his hand slid down and her legs parted to accept his touch again. Her whole body felt liquid and hot, her pulse driven. Soft sounds came from Rye’s throat, half groan, half accolade, until at last he spoke gruffly in her ear.

  “You’re supposed to touch me, too, Laura.”

  Instinctively, she knew he meant in the same place he was touching her, but her fingers seemed spliced into the threads of his shirt. His lips rested on hers, then his tongue rode across her bottom lip and nuzzled toward her ear.

  “Laura, don’t be scared.”

  But she was. She had come here knowing a little bit about what he might do to her, but nothing about a woman’s part in all this. He kissed her ear, and she squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lower lip. He had asked Charles, hadn’t he? Charles must know. She understood that boys were shaped differently than girls, but had never before questioned why. What would happen if she let her hand slide down? Would he grow wet, too? Then what? How should she touch him?

  Her palm, resting on his ribs, grew damp. She held her breath and eased her hand to his hip, then stopped, afraid. He kissed her encouragingly, murmuring her name and nudging her hand until it began moving by degrees—until it halted with the backs of her knuckles touching the buttons of his fly. His hips began a series of slow undulations and she brushed lightly back and forth, feeling little except the woolen texture of his pants and the coolness of brass buttons.

  Without warning his hand captured hers, turned it over, and pressed it hard against the brass buttons. Wild questions burst into her mind. Why wasn’t he shaped as she’d thought men were shaped? What was this ridge which, even through wool and brass, she could tell was bigger than what her peeps at naked infants had led her to expect?

  He held her hand firmly, playing it up and down before finally cupping it firmly against him, way down low, where his trousers felt warm and damp. Suddenly he rolled away and fell back against the tarp, eyes closed, legs outstretched. But he still held her wrist, guiding her hand up and down, up and down the mysterious ridge. Her fingertips grew brave and began exploring, counting buttons—one, two, three, four, five—the ridge stopped at the fifth button.

  Rye rolled his head to face her, and opened his eyes. He licked his dry lips and she stared at his familiar blue eyes, which held an expression she’d never before encountered in them. She was sitting up now, higher than he, breathing hard through trembling lips, her own eyes wide and unsmiling, filled with discovery. His hand fell away and his hips began rising and falling rhythmically, and only when he felt her palm stay to complement the rhythm of his thrusts did his eyes close again.

  She stared down at her hand, feeling the brass buttons grow warm as they scraped along her palm, watching Rye’s stomach and ribs heaving torturously, as if he’d just completed a league’s swim.
<
br />   “Laura?”

  The throaty word brought her eyes back to his with a snap.

  “Kiss me while you do that.”

  She bent over him, and when their tongues met, hot and wet, his thrusting grew more pronounced. And then she felt his fingers circle her wrist again and haul her hand to the top button at his waist. Instinctively, she knew what he wanted of her and began to pull away. But he clapped a hand around the back of her neck and forced her to stay as she was.

  She managed to free her mouth, shaking her head once and twisting free of his hand. “Rye, don’t!”

  “I did it to you. Don’t you think I was scared, too?” His eyes seemed suddenly to blaze with anger while her clenched fist was held captive at his waist.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I ... I just can’t, that’s all.”

  He braced himself up against the tarp, rolling slightly toward her, the anger now replaced by a new tone of encouragement. “Aw, Laura, come on, don’t be scared. I promise nothing bad will happen.” He bestowed fluttering touches of his lips upon her face until her fingers relaxed. He was rubbing the back of her hand softly, where it rested against the hard muscles of his stomach, just above his waistband. “Laura, don’t you want to know what I feel like?”

  Oh ... she did, she did. But it was easier letting somebody touch you than being the one who touched. A moment later, though, he was releasing the brass buttons himself while her trembling palm still lay on his stomach and he half leaned over her, kissing her tenderly as if to reassure her it was all right. He raised his hip and pulled the tail of his shirt up, and its barrier was suddenly gone from between her palm and his skin. Then he found her wrist again and drew her hand down to something that was so hot, she flinched away. But relentlessly, Rye took her hand to his flesh again and covered her shaking fingers with his own, making a sheath of her hand into which his long, silken surprise slipped. My God, had there ever been skin so smooth or so hot? It was smoother than the tender flesh of his inner lip, which her tongue had grazed many times. It was hotter than the inside of his mouth, which she knew as well as her own. He held her fingers closed tightly and forced them to stroke up and down while her heart threatened to explode inside her body. I’m going to hell! I’m going to hell! But no threat of hell could tear her hand from his body now. She experimented, moving the silken skin with tender exploration, learning each ridge and hollow of the masculine shaft until he fell back in abandon, his hand now fallen away from hers. She looked down and saw what she held then for the first time. In the deepening shadows it appeared to be the color of the deepest of the cosmos in her mother’s garden. Abashed at having viewed it, she felt the same color suffuse her face and tore her eyes away. But now Rye made a guttural sound at the crest of each stroke and a moment later his body began a frightful trembling, his hips seeming to shake in a way that scared Laura much more than anything that had happened so far. But when she would have pulled away, he held her, and a moment later something warm and wet cascaded over the back of her hand and between her fingers.

  “Rye, oh Rye, stop!” Her voice was choked with fright. “Something’s wrong. I think you’re bleeding.” She was afraid to look down and find out. It must be blood. What else could it be, warm and wet? She started to cry.

  “Laura, shh ...” They were lying on the floor, her head resting in the crook of his elbow, and he turned to pull her cheek beneath his lips. “Are you crying?”

  “I’m scared. I think I hurt you.”

  “It’s not blood, Laura ... look.”

  But she was afraid to look down, sure now that when she did, she’d find her hand scarlet with Rye’s blood. His blue eyes seemed so sure, looking deeply into hers, but her voice trembled and tears rolled down her temple.

  “I ... I told you I didn’t want to ... and now ... now something awful has happened, I just know it.”

  Unbelievably, Rye smiled. Laura was incensed to think he could be smiling at a time like this.

  “I said look, Laura. If you don’t believe me, look.”

  She did at last. White. It was white and slick and had dampened a circle on the tarp between them.

  Her eyes flew to his. “Wh ... what is it?”

  “It’s what makes babies.”

  “Babies! Rye Dalton, how dare you put it on me if you knew that all the time!” Instinctively, she sat up, searching frantically for something with which to clean her hand so that one didn’t start in her. At last she used her petticoat.

  “Button your britches up, Rye Dalton, and don’t you ever do that to me again. If I got a baby, my mother would kill me!” Disdainfully, she turned her back on him while fastening her buttons. When her clothing was all adjusted, she knelt with her hands clenched tightly between her knees, horrified to think of what he’d done to her.

  On his knees, Rye moved close behind her. “Laura, haven’t you ever heard how a woman gets pregnant?”

  Her chin was trembling and the tears rolled freely. “No, never before tonight.” Distressed by his thoughtlessness in jeopardizing her, she swung around angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me before we ... I ... we did it?”

  “Laura, I promise you you’re not going to get pregnant. You can’t.”

  “But ... but ...”

  “That stuff’s got to get inside you before you can get pregnant, but I wasn’t inside you, was I?”

  “Inside me?” Her puzzled eyes probed his.

  “Haven’t you ever seen animals do it, Laura?”

  “Animals?”

  “A dog or ... or even chickens?” But her confused expression needed no further interpreting. It clearly spoke of ignorance.

  “Do what?” No animal could do what they’d just done! They knelt facing each other with their knees almost touching. Dusk had settled, so only the pale outlines of their faces were visible in the dusty old loft. His face wore an expression of deep tenderness.

  He reached for her hand and placed it on his brass buttons. “This part of me goes into this part of you.” He pressed his palm into her lap. “Then there are babies.”

  Her lips fell open. Her blue eyes were wide with disbelief. Could Rye be right? Her face burned, and she yanked her hand away from his.

  “What happened in your hand has to happen inside your body, Laura. That’s how a man gives a woman a baby.” He touched her jaw, but she was too ashamed to look up at him. But he went on earnestly. “I promise I’ll never do that to you, though, until after we’re married.”

  Now her eyes flew to his. Her heart beat crazily and a flood of relief surged through her. “M ... married?”

  “Don’t you think we should get married, Laura, after ... well ... after this?”

  “M ... married?” Her astonishment began to grow. “You want to marry me, Rye, really?”

  His astonishment, too, blossomed into manly realization, then a grin. “Why, I can’t imagine marrying anybody besides you, Laura.”

  “Oh, Rye!” Suddenly she was up against him, her arms about his neck, her eyes squeezed tightly shut at the thought of it. Until just this minute she hadn’t thought of how awful it might have been not to marry Rye after what they’d done together. “I can’t imagine marrying anybody besides you, either.”

  He held her, and they rocked back and forth while her face remained securely against his neck.

  “Do you think that makes it all right ... I mean ... you know?” came her muffled question.

  “Touching and stuff, you mean?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I don’t think husband and wives go to hell for touching.” She released a sigh of relief, then backed away and looked eagerly into his face. “Rye, let’s tell Dan.”

  “Tell Dan?”

  “That we’re going to get married.”

  Rye looked skeptical. “Not yet. We’ll have to wait until my apprenticeship is served, Laura. Then, when I’m a master cooper, we can afford to live in a house of our own. I don’t think we should tell Dan til
l then.”

  Slightly disappointed, she sank back on her heels. “Well ... all right, if you think it’s best.”

  ***

  But it was hard for Laura to keep from telling Dan the very next time they met, for she wanted to share her new joy—after all, the three of them had always shared everything.

  It was a week later. An immense storm had blown up, and afterward, Laura and Dan went out together to scour the shingle for driftwood, a precious commodity here on Nantucket, where there was little wood to spare, since most was hauled over from the mainland. The coast along the south side of the island caught the worst of the Atlantic’s wrath and also turned up the greatest rewards after storms. Laura and Dan were working their way eastward when they came upon Rye, standing some twenty yards away, across the wet, hard-packed shingle that was strewn with shells, kelp, and tidepools where small fish had been trapped. The storm itself had passed, but the skies were still low, with scudding gray clouds hemming in the island, making it a world apart.

  Rye wore a heavy pea jacket, its collar turned up around the flaxen hair that whipped about his face in the wind. Laura, in a yellow slicker and red bandana, raised her arm to wave as soon as she saw him.

  The three of them moved down the beach together after that, their burlap sacks scraping triple tracks as they dragged along. It was the first time Laura had seen Rye since the evening in the boathouse, and she immediately got that curious wanton feeling in the pit of her stomach and wondered how they could get rid of Dan. The natural way was to ask if his mother had anything good to eat, and when the answer was “gingerbread,” they made Dan’s house their first stop back in town.

  By the time Laura and Rye left Dan’s house, she felt ready to burst with impatience, yet he seemed calm and unaffected by the last two hours—the last seven days! But when they were moving down the street toward Josiah’s, Rye did something he’d never done before: he took her sack from her and hoisted it over his shoulder with his own, refusing to heed her insistence that she could handle it herself. The waterlogged wood was as heavy as dead weight, and secretly Laura was pleased by Rye’s chivalry. He even managed to open the door of the cooperage for her despite his burden.