For a few moments I sat still trying to take this in, but most of it was incomprehensible to me. All I got from it was that Mother was worried about the shame in my past, and that some learned men believed bad things were sometimes good for you-or at least, this is how it seemed to me. I wished I could ask Mother, but I was ashamed to admit that I had been eavesdropping.
When I entered the dining room, Gunilla and Louise were coming down the stairs. I waved to them, then ducked through the door, not wanting to see Gunilla-or better- not being yet prepared to see her after the strange night before, but to my consternation, they followed me in. I was just on the verge of excusing myself from breakfast despite my hunger rather than face her over the meal, when Nilla said:
“Hi, Lars. Morning, Mother! We are going for a walk in the woods with Gustav if it’s all right.”
“Of course, dear,” Mother replied.
Gunilla turned to me, her eyes twinkling and dancing:
“Like to come along, Lars?” she half mocked. Her large breasts were offering themselves through a tight mocca jacket.
But as I blushed, trying to decide between the company of the breasts and the prospect of talking to Mother, the latter came to my rescue:
“Now, girls, you run along and let Lars have some breakfast and collect himself. He can come out later and play with you.”
I wondered to myself how she meant that “play” and then blushed again in self reproach for such thoughts, and for my sudden impulse to go. Without meeting Gunilla’s eye again, I turned and walked to the table.
As I sat down, Mother pulled a cloth cord and when the maid entered said:
“Annie, bring Lars a bowl of porridge, and afterwards some potatoes and eggs. He’s used to a good English breakfast.”
The maid stared at me with blue eyes, staring me up and down.
“Yes, Mrs. Brahe,” she said, and turned towards the pantry.
I noticed the gentle roll of her buttocks as she walked, but under the apron and serving frock she was wearing, it was hard to discern the apparition of the night before. Her long red hair, which I had last seen hanging to her waist, was now quite properly pinned on top of her head. But the arms which I had admired by lamp light looked the same. But everything was profoundly different. The knowledge of her unclothed breasts was in me. The memory of her in front of Father.; And under him. It was wild to be properly in a room with her now as though all was decent. It was the same with Gunilla.
I turned my eyes toward Mother whose smile suddenly enveloped me.
“Well, did you sleep, Lars?” she demanded. I almost feared those wide, discerning eyes could look into my soul to discover my secrets of the night before.
“Uh-yes, Mother, I-uh-did sleep all right. But I was-uh-so excited-that is-uh-it took me a while,” I stammered.
Then I blushed furiously at the possible double meaning of this.
“You poor darling,” she said, reaching out and stroking my hand. “You mustn’t be afraid of me. But then soon you will get used to being loved and cared for in ways you haven’t been used to.”
Again I blushed, then pinched myself for allowing these interpretations to occur to me. But she kept looking at me and smiling as though to herself.
Nothing more was said while I ate. Each time I looked up, she was looking at me with vague, dream-like eyes.
After breakfast, we went into the living room, still both busy with our own thoughts. Annie brought in the coffee things, brought me a cup and left. I drank the coffee slowly, gazing at the floor filled with a sea of memories of Gunilla. It had been so much more than I thought could be. Suddenly I realized Mother was approaching me with the coffee urn. I remembered the previous night and what had happened when Gunilla had leaned down to pour. I saw that Mother’s blouse had several buttons open. She was before me, asking if she could fill my cup. She was bending, the blouse was sagging. At the last second, I closed my eyes. Thank God.
A long time went by. I couldn’t feel my cup filling. I opened my eyes. Mother was standing in front of me. There was an almost invisible smile at the corners of her mouth. Very carefully her left hand buttoned her blouse. To the very top button. Then she leaned forward and filled my cup. She replaced the coffee urn, said softly that she had to go into town for some things, and gracefully walked out.
I gulped the coffee and ran out the other door. I had to get outside, out of this house, for a while. To think. So much was happening.
Outside, I ran a long time. Finally out of breath I found myself in a pine woods.
As I kept walking the wood grew thicker and thicker, turning the light into strange ambers and greens. Along both sides of the trail were huge boulders.
I climbed one of these and moved across the flat top intending to descend the other side. Then I heard a voice coming from the clearing ahead. I stopped and looked down. The clearing was small and in the center of it was Louise laying what appeared to be a bed of pine branches. While she worked she spoke softly as though to another person. Beside the bed lay a coat which I realized to my surprise was mine.
She wore a blue sweat shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. I noticed the curve of her small buttocks as she bent. Even as I thought of how meager they were compared to Gunilla’s, I was at the same time excited by their slenderness.
I was about to climb down when something she was saying stopped me,
“…and in a minute, dear, I’ll have it finished so you can lay down and rest. Please be patient, dearest Lars-just one more moment now…” and she stepped over to the coat and patted the shoulder tenderly. The motion pulled the sweat shirt up exposing half her back. I watched the play of sun on the white skin, the narrow waist. The thin form of her back, whiteness, again!
She placed the last couple of branches, adjusted them a little. Then she picked up the coat carefully and laid it on the bed much as one would a person. “There, my only darling, now you can rest after your long day’s work.” She bent and kissed the coat. Then: “Are you comfortable, my dearest? Oh Lars, I do so hope I am being a good wife for you.” Her face was very concerned. “Do you know that last night while you slept I prayed to God to protect you and to teach me to be worthy of being your wife! You know how completely I adore you, Lars, and how I only live to serve you.”
She looked so pleadingly at the coat that my throat caught. Her face was a study in innocent purity and supplication and I was as deeply moved as I was astounded. Then I suddenly remembered Gunilla’s voice telling me how I would possess and violate this child. Suddenly I heard both voices simultaneously, the one all purity and holiness, and the other full of the earthy wisdom of indecency and the wild wonderful quality of corruption.
I kept watching the revelation of flesh each time she bent; her form was so thin-so slight, accentuating the narrow ridge of her spine. I noticed how the jeans pulled down as she bent exposing the top of her pink panties. Something about her thin little legs where the jeans were rolled up. The thing began: a driving, urgent sense of power-a burning to possess and to alter her-
Louise had kneeled down beside the coat and with one hand on the sleeve of the coat and the other on her breast was saying: “I swear now in thy name and in the name of Jesus our Savior to remain always and only yours: your faithful wife, your servant, your plaything…”
(And in my head that other voice: “Little Louise will be your slave, your toy…”)
“…and I will be and do anything and everything for you… all that you want of me…” (“She will do all the fine perverted things you have hidden inside you that you don’t even know about yet…”) ”…Forever I will cleave only unto you, in purity, my darling, my angel, my God!”
Tears came to her eyes as she prayed, yet inside my stomach the panthers were at me again. The double image I had of her purity superimposed on the world of Gunilla was an incredible indecency, and the effect of it was a new madness in my blood. Strange thoughts, fantasies, images danced in my brain and I looked down with a hunger and ravening that violated every icon in the temple of my poor little sister… But that was it! That was what it was in me-the incredible sense of violation! The purity smudged and perverted, taken advantage of and exploited, lustily, hungrily, finally turned all liquid with sensualness and desire: the final corruption of innocence… all this burning in my startled brain and the need in my bowels and the fever like waves of madness…