Passion Play (29 page)

Fabian recalled with amusement an incident some years back, when he had accepted an offer to conduct a seminar at an Ivy League university that prided itself on its long tradition of polo and horsemanship. The dean left Fabian to choose his subject, and he settled on the title Riding Through Life. Even though the seminar could accommodate only twenty students, more than a hundred undergraduates bred on movie and television images of cowboys applied to take the course. To thin the herd, Fabian arranged for an introductory session.

Standing before the applicants in his most elegant riding apparel, he announced that the title of the seminar was merely a metaphor for its real subject, which was the fertile role of pain, illness and age in the human condition. Students who were accepted would examine the philosophical and emotional as well as the corporeal aspects of suffering, aging and dying. To induce a profound comprehension of the subject, Fabian continued, maintaining a straight face, the students would be confronted during the course of the seminar with the various manifestations of pain: how it is given, how received, by participating in experiments on various animals—a dog, a cat, a mouse, a squirrel, perhaps a horse. They would also be required to visit and to participate in the workings of a hospital, an asylum, the town morgue, the autopsy laboratory of the police department, and a cemetery. Fabian said he was particularly pleased to announce that an undesignated member of Suicides Anonymous had volunteered to spend the last moments of his or her life with the seminar and, in its presence, perform the rite of death.

With a smiling flourish, Fabian reassured them that their Suicides
Anonymous one-way guest would not be an alumnus of their distinguished university; they need not fear, he told them, that the school’s good name would suffer because of the suicide. Also, in accordance with the university’s strict fire and weapons regulations, the visitor, in his final act, would have recourse to some means other than a torch gun.

The students listened to Fabian in stunned silence; here and there, from the rising tiers of seats, came a nervous cought or sudden sneeze. Someone raised a handkerchief to his mouth; no one was willing to get up and leave the auditorium openly, yet everyone squirmed in agony, waiting for the end. Fabian finished; a frantic scampering to every exit broke out. Only a few candidates for Riding Through Life were left.

No longer a knight on a white charger, Fabian stepped out of the bath and dried and dressed himself. Though his back pain persisted, he left his VanHome. The night was cool, the stars shining with almost tropical brightness.

He followed one of the country lanes, becoming a target for fireflies and overhanging branches, aware that he was walking toward the house where the party had been held. He refused to ask himself what it was that he sought. The image of Vanessa gracefully catching the rose dissolved into his memory of her small breasts and narrow waist, slightly muscular thighs, feet that seemed at least one size too large for her body. And he remembered her face: exaggerated features and expressive eyes, smooth skin, the white teeth that showed when she laughed, the thickened lip—and the scar.

At the Weirstones’ house spotlights still commanded the lawn. Through the large windows, Fabian saw the guests seated at clusters of tables in the living room or carrying laden plates to other rooms or out to one of the terraces.

He circled the house and went to the parking area. He saw a yellow convertible with a dark top, headed straight toward it and opened the door. Two tennis rackets lay on the back seat, next to
a container of tennis balls and a pullover. He reached inside and picked up the sweater; the soft wool gave off a musky perfume mingled with perspiration. He put it back, shut the car door and lay down on the grass behind the bushes that marked off the parking area. From the pond across the road, night sounds—hooting, croaking—lulled him, and, despite the aching in his back, he dozed off. He awoke sharply to the brittle patter and flurry of guests leaving the house, heading for their cars. As more people moved toward the parking area, he hid in the bushes. The scramble and rush of farewells soon died down. Only a half-dozen cars were left now.

Fabian saw Vanessa and two young men walk out of the house. She had draped a white shawl over her shoulders and still carried the rose he had tossed to her. The three stopped by a large sedan parked next to her convertible.

“That’s just so sweet of you, Stuart, really. But you’d better start for town before it gets any later. I can drive home alone-it’s only a couple of miles, you know.” Vanessa’s voice was as unaffected as he had remembered it.

“Wednesday, then? I’ll see you in town?” It was one of the men.

“I don’t know yet,” she answered. “I’ll let you know.” The two young men got into the sedan, and one of them called out good-night through the open window before they drove off. Vanessa opened her car door, and tension gripped Fabian. He was about to speak to her when she hesitated, threw the rose on the dashboard and, with an air of distraction, as though she had forgotten something, walked quickly back to the house. Suddenly unsure of himself, of her, Fabian resisted calling after her. He watched her disappear inside the house. Waiting, he became afraid that she might return with someone to take her home. He got up, brushed wet grass and leaves from his pants, and, unwilling to ponder the consequences of what he was about to do, slipped quickly into the back of her car, drawing up his legs and clutching his arms around them, concealing himself behind the high headrests of the car’s contoured front seats.

More than sensations, images stirred and sustained desire. Now, huddled in Vanessa’s car, waiting, Fabian wanted to reappear to her as a new presence, a fresh image to erase the familiar one. He heard her opening the car door, slipping into the driver’s
seat, pulling the door closed. In the shadowed light filtering through the car’s rear window, Fabian caught only the wreath of her auburn hair above the headrest of her seat. The drift of her perfume broke over him as he heard her insert the key to turn on the ignition. The car jerked, moved forward, then swerved so abruptly that, in order to remain undetected, Fabian had to grab the seat. They passed the house, its light slashing through the car’s interior in staccato flares. She shifted again and, veering the car, picked up speed. The darkness outside told Fabian they were on a country road, and he assumed she would soon reach the main highway. Lifting his body slightly and leaning to one side, he looked between the front seats and discerned in the greenish glow of the dashboard the ghostly shells of her hands resting on the wheel.

He could not decide what to do. How could he reveal himself without frightening her? If she panicked, they might crash. What if she were to pull a gun from the glove compartment and shoot him?

He tried to decipher the darkness. Woods seemed to border both sides of the road, its surface rough. Vanessa was now driving warily, with a slowness that would lessen the chance of an accident if he frightened her. He would wait no more. Inclining to the right, he inched toward the front passenger seat. She had depressed the clutch and was about to shift when he loomed over her.

She opened her mouth in terror, gasping, but no sound came; she slumped over the wheel. The car rolled forward, still in neutral. Her right hand clutched the gearshift, and her left gripped the steering wheel before her. Fabian could not tell whether she found the brake pedal by instinct or consciously, but he pitched forward as the car skidded to a halt. Only then did Vanessa scream; it was a scream that seemed to pierce the windshield.

The headlights flooded trees; the car was pointing off the road. The oil indicator light on the panel glowed red. Fabian lunged between the seats, throwing his left hand over Vanessa’s mouth and switching off the ignition and lights with his right. Vanessa struggled under his hand, unable to turn her face toward him. He eased his grip slightly, but kept her mouth sealed. His middle
finger sought the scar on her upper lip, sliding into the deep groove; involuntarily, he further eased his grip, as if fearful of opening an old wound.

Vanessa was trembling; a wave of heat came from her body, her sweat wetting Fabian’s hand.

“I won’t harm you,” he whispered tensely at her ear. “I won’t, I won’t,” he repeated, his hand loosening against her mouth.

She nodded, the muscles of her chin unclenching beneath his fingers. He took his hand away from her face.

Clinging to the steering wheel, she seemed about to collapse. Slowly, she pushed herself up and turned toward him. Her mouth opened in recognition, but she remained speechless. He moved closer, placing his arm around her. She was still trembling.

“I gave you that, Vanessa,” he said, pointing at the rose on the dashboard.

“Fabian!” She coughed, gagging as she cleared her throat, her voice hoarse and uncertain. “You frightened me so!” She threw her arms around him, then she pulled back, studying him intently. “You haven’t changed, not at all!” In the greenish light, Fabian saw how her scar broke the line of the lip, cutting into one nostril.

Vanessa Stanhope had first entered Fabian’s life smiling up at him from the pages of an issue of
The Saddle Bride.

He had focused on her not only because she was a Stanhope, a name that stopped him instantly, but because of the note of seduction the photograph had arrested in her: the expressive eyes, high cheekbones, lush hair, the wide mouth, even teeth-all that exerted a command on him. Accenting her mouth was a deep cleft in her upper lip, a scar that invited speculation about her. The caption under the photograph extolled her as “a fresh and vibrant beauty, an honor student, an accomplished rider.” It also informed the reader that Vanessa Stanhope lived with her parents in Totemfield. So it was that, as Stella had earlier prompted his trip to Shelbyville, Vanessa now became the chief cause behind Fabian’s selection of the Double Bridle Stables in Totemfield. Soon after receiving Fabian’s letter of inquiry, the owner of the Double Bridle Stables hired him as a riding instructor.

Once settled in, with his classes in horsemanship well attended, Fabian telephoned Vanessa. He complimented her on her riding accomplishments cited in
The Saddle Bride
and, casually alluding
to his own expertise and distinction, invited her to join one of his classes.

Flattered by his phone call, Vanessa exclaimed that she had read all his books on equitation. The following morning, with the approval of her parents and her school’s headmistress, she appeared for Fabian’s class. When he saw her, the full force of his obsession—a longing to own her—frightened him.

She became his pupil. Watched by friends and parents of some of the other students in his classes, she would enter the arena, riding one of her family’s horses. Fabian could hear murmurs of approval, or surprise, from the spectators. He would follow Vanessa on one of the stable horses, the two of them cantering in circles, half-turns and serpentines. Years later, the image remained with him of her sloping forward in taut breeches, her thighs and buttocks pressed into the saddle or rising in a trot; he remembered her burst of laughter when he caught in midair like a polo ball in flight the training helmet that had flown off her head during a jump.

He instructed her in how she was to follow the movement of the horse with the propulsion of her loins and back, her pelvic bone pushing now sideways, now forward or back in starting, turning, halting or backing up the animal. Sometimes he stood close to her, his hands correcting her foot and heel, then, while checking her seat, brushing the inside of her thigh; his fingers lightly kneaded the cloth of her breeches, inches away from her groin.

Once, under a pretext of correcting her position in a canter, Fabian took Vanessa out along the stable’s bridle path. Alone in that private wooded track, they were cantering easily when he suddenly brought his horse close to hers and, seizing her reins, teamed the horses, startling them into a full gallop. Bluntly Fabian reached out and slid his hand, knuckles down, between the pommel and Vanessa’s seat, digging deep into her breeches, until he could feel her every move.

She turned to him, staring, her mouth open, the scar pale against the color staining her face. Fabian slowed the horses and swerved them deeper into the woods. He dismounted; Vanessa, vaulting off her horse, followed. He tied up the horses, then without a word went to her. He took off her helmet and dropped
it on the grass. For a moment, they looked at each other; then, lifting a hand, he laid his fingers on her mouth, delicately tracing the scar. She began to lap his fingers with her tongue, licking his thumb, sucking his fingers into her mouth. Her tongue between his fingers, the palm of his hand warming against her mouth, he began to kiss her neck, then buried his face in her hair. She trembled, her teeth kneading his fingers, her body resisting, pulling away from him. He held her fast, searching the fragile shell of her ear with his tongue, coaxing it deeper, licking and darting, her heat mingling with his own breath. She no longer tried to pull away, her breath, in short spurts of fervor, breaking over the palm of his hand.

Aroused, he wanted to take her, but his purpose was stronger than desire. He knew that if Vanessa were to come to him as he willed, it must be to imprint him in her memory; like a colt, she was to be schooled, he at the lead, she following at liberty, without rigs, harness, reins. A fresh tide of heat surged through her clothes, warming his chest. As her orgasm burst forth, Vanessa slid to the grass, her head against his thighs; he had yet to kiss her mouth, to touch her naked body, to enter her flesh.

Sometimes, during class, Fabian would reprimand Vanessa openly in the presence of other students, citing a defect or carelessness in her riding. Signaling to her in a code of brow and smile, he would observe aloud that she did not settle deeply enough into the saddle or thrust her heels sufficiently down, or that her calves had slipped back and her elbows jutted out.

He would demonstrate her errors in readying her horse for a jump: how, by straightening her legs too rigidly and releasing the grip of her calves, she permitted the animal to come too close to the fence, denying it space to gather momentum for its spring. Then he would suggest that Vanessa needed to practice in a larger area than that offered by the cramped arena, and he would schedule a private lesson on one of the bridle paths that webbed and threaded the sprawling woods around the estates of Totemfield. It amused him, at times, to announce boldly in front of others that he would be waiting for her at a certain time, the place confirmed, his own ponies at the ready, the lesson planned.
At other times, he and Vanessa rode out together openly, taking the stable horses past the indifferent gaze of instructors with their students.