CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Uhhh,” Adrienne gasped. Her eyes shot open; her body jerked. She let out a long stream of air. Her heart pounded. Only a dream. It was only a dream. She stared at the moonlight that spilled through the small window, painting the wall and floor in a blue glow. Only a dream, she told herself again. She was in her room, high up on the fourth floor of Miramont Castle. In America. In Manitou Springs. Only a dream.
Adrienne rolled onto her back. She stared at the ceiling, waiting for the thudding and lurching of her heart to slow. She sighed again and closed her eyes.
In the dream, she’d been sleeping, lying on her side. She was in her own bed at the chateau in France, a young girl of only nine or ten. She woke suddenly, her eyes flying open and her leg jerking. Moonlight flooded through the big picture window and onto the floor and the bed. But in the dream, she woke knowing that she was not alone. Someone was in the room with her.
She lay very still, trying to sense whom it was, to sense the quiet movements. She could feel the warmth of the body, feel hot puffs of air on her neck. Julien crawled into the bed and lay down behind her, his body curled around hers. His hand ran up and down her arm, down the side of her hip and thigh.
Adrienne rolled onto her back. “What are you doing?”
Julien brought his hand up quickly, pressing his fingers flat against her lips. “Shhh,” he whispered.
She stared at him in the dark. His face was a pale oval in the moonlight. His mouth disappeared in the darkness of his mustache and beard. He removed the pressed fingers from her lips, slowly, cautiously, as if not sure she could be trusted to stay quiet.
“What . . .” she whispered.
His eyes held a sparkle, a feverish gleam. His eyelids drooped, a heavy-lidded look that made her squirm. She realized that he had his other hand on his own body, massaging himself slowly. He continued to rub himself with one hand, and with the other he trailed his fingers down her lips and her neck, through the dip of her collarbone, across her flat, little-girl chest, and slowly down her leg.
“Ahhh, Adrienne,” he breathed. “Don’t you ever get lonely?”
Adrienne blinked, tears stinging her eyes at the mention of the word. Yes. Yes. She was very lonely. She lay very still. She couldn’t breathe, the word stabbing her chest like a knife. Lonely. Unbearably lonely. She had to have been nine or ten; her grand-père had been dead for over two years.
He moved his hand; she felt his body press closer to hers. “It’s so difficult, isn’t it? To be alone so much?”
Adrienne felt a tear filling her eye. She raised one hand, swiped at it angrily.
“I really don’t believe that God wants us to be alone like that, to be so lonely,” Julien whispered. He was moving against her now, pressing himself against her side, his hand trailing to the bone between her legs. She tried to shift away. His hand was insistent, firm, and she cried out.
“It’s all right, Adrienne. I won’t hurt you. God wants us to be touched. He wants us to feel good.” Julien’s breath came in ragged gasps next to her ear. Her hair felt hot and sticky where it caught his panting.
He made a groaning sound. His body shifted, almost covering her with its weight. He buried his face in the pillow. His hand stopped moving, his body stopped pressing. He lay there for a moment, utterly still.
His touch had felt dirty. She squirmed with shame, not understanding his movements or his breathing or anything about what was going on. She was afraid of him, in some way she had never known before. This was not normal.
“This is our secret, Adrienne. I’ll help you . . . with your loneliness. I know how good it feels to be touched. To be held.” He caressed the sides of her face, his fingers light and slow. “But we mustn’t tell anyone. Only those who are truly lonely can understand.” He held his fingers to his lips, as if shushing her. He rose from the bed, shifted the fabric of his pajamas, and moved to her bedroom door, his feet totally quiet on the floor. He turned back and looked at her, his eyes dark jewels in the night. “You understand, don’t you?” He looked at her again, his eyes hard, almost threatening. “This is our secret.” He snickered. “You don’t want people to think that you’re making up stories again, now do you?”
He closed the door with a gentle click.
Adrienne’s heart thudded; she stared into the dark of the room in Miramont, trying to force her mind to stop racing. It is only a dream, she told herself, over and over. Only a dream. But it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a memory.
Her mind went back to the day before, the day that the Creightons had dropped in for tea. She saw, once more, the way Julien’s tapered fingers had lingered over the hand of the little girl, Eliza. Adrienne raised her own hand from the covers and held it in front of her face. Had he touched her, that same way? She could almost see Julien’s fingers, lingering over her own small hand. She could almost feel the brush of his fingers against hers, when he asked for her to pass the salt at the table, or when he handed her a book. She stared at her own hand in the semi-dark, felt the pitch and roll of her stomach at the thought.
Those years after Grand-père had passed were lost in a haze. She had tried so hard to keep her voice quiet, to keep her visions in check. She had blotted out huge pieces of her childhood. Now, at this distance, she tried to figure out if this were only a dream, or if it had really happened. The only thing she knew for certain was that it all made her feel sick, shame and revulsion mixing in a stomach-churning brew.