The Falling Woman by Shaena Lambert

Author:Shaena Lambert [Lambert, Shaena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-36983-3
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2001-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Now I yank the blinds down, they rattle to the radiator, and when I turn the plastic wand, there is darkness. Back in bed, I ease my legs out, leaning on one hip, trying to find the position that will let me sleep.

The day after Selena and Aunt Clara arrived at the farm, Selena and I made a plan to go to the stable, to read her paperback together. But in the morning we changed the sprinklers in the horse pasture, then drove with Mother and Clara into town. It was late afternoon before she and I slid the stable door open on its runner, then closed it behind us. Inside, the clay floor retained its coolness. I could hear Douna blowing through her nose. Mother’s collection of tack hung on the walls around us—bridles with bits dangling down, reins coiled around each other, western saddles splayed on their racks.

We hoisted ourselves onto the wall between two stalls and sat with our legs dangling down, watching the colt nurse from Douna’s swollen teat. Selena took a frosted lipstick from her red purse.

“Put some on,” she offered.

“I can’t,” I said. “My mother will see.”

“What’s she going to do? Whip you?” She made a shiver of feminine contempt—for my mother for whipping me, for me for being whipped. Then she reached into her purse again, drawing out, at last, the dog-eared paperback: My Darling Ravager! On the front a pirate captain, his shirt streaming open at the chest, clenched the hilt of his sword with one hand, while with his other he grasped a woman by the waist. Her back was arched, her lips open and her eyes closed. “Swooning with desire,” Selena explained.

She leafed to a place she had marked. “This is the part where the pirate captain has tied Lady Birkwith in the hold. Listen to this: ‘You swine,’ she cried out, her violet eyes flashing, ‘you’ll pay for this.’ He gave her a mocking half-smile, then she felt his strong arms grip her. She breathed in his murky scent, gasping as his mouth found hers. She tried to struggle but found she could not, did not want to. A hot tide of passion surged through her. Then she gasped again, as the sweet torture of his hands began to unlace the bodice of her gown.”

We looked at each other and laughed.

“How big are your breasts now?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Mine are bigger than last year,” she said. She pulled open the elastic collar of her dress and showed me a cotton training bra. She tossed her Alice in Wonderland blond hair back over her shoulders. “Well, let’s see yours.”

I untucked my checked shirt from my jeans and lifted it up.

“Ooh,” she said, “you’ve got dark nipples.”

I felt a blush of shame course through me. Her hair was blond; mine was a tangle of muddy curls. Her nipples were pink; mine were an unseemly dark shade, like eggplant. I knew my face in the dusk was plain and pinched like my mother’s.

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