The Whiskey Sea by Ann Howard Creel

Author:Ann Howard Creel [Creel, Ann Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781503936898
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
Published: 2016-08-22T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They had a nightcap on the Lower East Side at The Back of Ratner’s, which was entered through a hidden passage. The place was packed. Scents Frieda had never encountered before were worn so heavily on some of the women that they overcame the odor of burning cigarettes and cigars. Teacups holding cocktails came together in clinks and mixed with the sounds of confident laugher and smooth jazz.

Later, looking back, she would think of herself as standing at the edge of the unknown, and slipping . . . yet not caring. Bea and Silver entered her mind, but she pushed them aside. When Princeton produced a key that led into the loveliest brick row house—he called it a townhouse—she’d ever seen, she did nothing to protest. He said it belonged to his parents, who were away in the Hamptons for the summer, and so they would be completely alone.

The place had a rich, dark sophistication. Inside, thick carpets overlaid marble floors and looked as if they’d been transported from the Orient. There were heavy wooden doors, and a massive chandelier in the dining room so lovely, it was as if all the stars in heaven had been captured inside its glinting flares of light.

When he opened his arms, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to enter that wonderful space. Frieda knew where this was leading. He wanted to make love to her. Even her secret fantasies had never taken her this far. She had never reached the wedding and wedding-night phase. A wedding was supposed to take place before this, wasn’t it? She remembered one of the girls at school saying, “Never give it all away without a ring on your finger.” That was what other people held as good advice. But when had she ever listened to advice? A sudden memory of her mother flashed unbidden into her mind. Her mother had given it all away, even selling herself in the end, and where had it gotten her? Her mother wouldn’t want her to do this. Was she becoming a typical innocent swept away by a hopeless romance, a sad cliché? Was this perhaps the same way her mother had begun to fall? Had impulse triumphed over reason?

She waited for reason, conscience, or fear—something—to speak to her and stop her, but when Princeton kissed her, all that spoke was a drumbeat of previously unknown needs and cravings. It would take an act of God to stop her now. All thoughts and concerns fell away.

He led her to the bedroom, undressed her, and said, “Why, you’re lovely, Frieda. Just lovely.”

Running his hands through her hair from her brow to the base of her neck, he pulled her to him for her second startling kiss and feel of him and then led her to bed. Was this sin? It didn’t feel like it.

She knew nothing of how to proceed, and so she followed where he took her. As he touched her, he told her he loved

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