Candy (3 page)

Mr. Christian puffed on his pipe.

“I simply want to know—”

“I don’t wish to discuss it,” said Candy, primly.

What was going on in her father’s mind, behind that impossibly dark brow, it is difficult to convey in full. Certainly he was furious with her, strove to dominate her, would argue, sulk and yet not raise a hand against her. Did he know he was playing a losing game? And is it, moreover, too much to believe that he enjoyed, not simply losing the game, but being a
bad loser
as well? In any event, he immediately lunged upon another very sore point between them.

“Then perhaps you will discuss
this,”
he said, tight-lipped. “Mrs. Harris said you were talking to Emmanuel again yesterday.”

Emmanuel was the Mexican boy who came to mow the lawn. Mr. Christian had strictly forbidden Candy to talk to him as she had shown, on a number of occasions, an inclination to do. Mr. Christian had said that he, personally, was broad-minded enough not to mind, but that it “looked funny” to the neighbors. He somehow associated the event with Professor Mephesto. But for Candy this was the last straw. “And I certainly
won’t
discuss
that!”
she said. “I’m so ashamed of you about
that
that I could die. Why, if Professor Mephesto knew that you had said that, I would
never
have been invited to his office! Not in a million years!”

Her father felt a severe, delicious pain in his head. It was with the greatest effort that he kept from blacking out, as he controlled his voice, and said:

“I don’t like to have to cut down on your allowance, but—”

“My allowance!”

Candy stamped her foot in pique.

“My gosh, is that all you can ever think of? Material things? Good Grief!”

With a toss of her pretty head, she turned abruptly, marched out of the room and up the stairs to her bed.

In the living room behind her, Mr. Christian looked back down at his paper, puffed on his pipe, and slowly, stiffly, shook his head, his lips and knuckles now the color of snow.

And that night Candy went to sleep trying to decide which she should do: give herself to the Mexican gardener, or run away to New York City.

T
HE NEXT DAY
was Saturday, and Candy had no classes; she didn’t get up until about ten. When she went downstairs, Mr. Christian had already left for the office, as he usually did on Saturday mornings, to “take care of a few things that have been piling up.”

Candy always enjoyed having breakfast alone, for then she could drink her coffee undisturbed by her father’s frown and his occasional quips about “cocoa being best for a growing girl.” This morning she had two cups, from time to time looking anxiously out the breakfast-nook window, into the sunny backyard—for this was the day that Emmanuel came to mow. And Candy had made her decision.

After her coffee and toast (she told herself she was much too excited to have more) she went back upstairs to her bath, and afterwards put on one of her prettiest summer dresses, and a touch of her favorite perfume, Tabu. Then she went downstairs and out the back door.

She found Emmanuel, kneeling at one of the flower beds at the side of the house, turning the earth with a trowel. How thin and wan he looked in his poor clothes. Oh, thought Candy, he does need me so
very
much!

“Hi!” she said brightly.

Emmanuel looked up, somewhat surprised to see her.

“Ha,” he said. He did not speak English too well.

“That doesn’t look like much fun,” said Candy, referring to his work.

“Whot?”

He frowned up at her; from the beginning of their conversations he had thought she was the dumbest girl he had ever met.

“Wouldn’t you like to come inside for a drink of something cool?” asked Candy, showing her white teeth and wet pink tongue in a silvery laugh.

“I don thunk Mister Christy wud leek,” said the gardener at last when he had understood her proposal.

“Oh, darn Daddy, anyway,” said Candy. “Surely I can entertain friends in my own home occasionally without
his
making a fuss!” But, of course, she knew he was right; so it was finally agreed, through a series of repetitions and gestures, that the gardener would go ahead of her into the garage and she would join him there with the drinks.

When she reached the garage she found him kneeling again, this time sharpening the blades of the lawn mower.

“How devoted you are!” said Candy, beaming, “I should think you could find something better to do on a lovely day like this!”

“Whot?”

She handed him the drink, bringing herself very close as she did, so that he could not fail to feel her warmth, nor to catch the fragrance of her Tabu.

“It’s a drop of sherry,” she said, at the same time indicating a box for them to sit on, “I think you’ll like it.”

“Whot?”

When they were seated, the gardener understood for perhaps the first time, when he had a tentative sip of the wine, what was being offered him.

“This good!” he said with a broad smile at the glass.

“Yes,” said Candy, “I find it has body
and
edge. Not like tea, a messy affair at best. Don’t you agree?”

“Whot?”

“Now then,” she said, hurrying on, for beneath her composure, the girl was quite excited, “tell me about yourself—your values, your plans and aspirations; tell me all sorts of things about yourself.”

“Whot?”

“Oh, Emmanuel,” said Candy with a soft sigh and a look that had become mournful, “it’s so very difficult for you here, isn’t it?”

She put her hand on his arm, closing her eyes, and leaning forward as though to comfort him in her understanding—and with some satisfaction she felt her breast touch against the back of his arm. She was all prepared to be kissed violently, but when it did not come, she opened her eyes to see the gardener staring at her oddly, suspiciously. For a moment she was flushed with confusion, which she covered by saying:

“Emmanuel,
look
at me. Listen to me now,” she continued in a grave tone, taking his hands in her own, “I know you don’t think Daddy—Mr. Christian—likes you. But I want you to know that we aren’t all like that, I mean that
all
human beings aren’t like that! Do you understand? Nothing is so beautiful as the human face.” Her manner had become quite severe, indeed, almost intimidating, and the gardener watched her with eyes grown large in wonder.

“You know, don’t you,” the girl went on, softer now, “that
I’m
not like that—that I’m
very
fond of you,” and she leaned forward again, closed-eyed, to his face and finally to his mouth, kissing him, deeply, and upsetting their glasses of sherry. And Candy was prepared to tell him not to bother about that, a material object of no importance, but it was not necessary, for with a few whimpering sounds of surprise, the gardener had held her kiss and was reaching into her dress now for her breast while his other hand had plunged between her legs.

“Oh, my darling,” Candy was saying. “You do need me so, you do need me so!”

But it was happening much faster than the girl had planned, and she became truly frightened now, as he tore at her small white panties, trying, with considerable urgency, to remove them.

“Oh darling, please, not here, not now, we mustn’t,” and she quickly broke away from him and ran to the door of the garage, where he followed her and renewed his attack, so that the girl rushed out into the open and the skirmish persisted halfway across the backyard.

Finally she calmed him, near the rhododendrons.

“Tonight,” she promised in a whisper. “Come to me at midnight,” and she indicated her bedroom, which was directly above them. “Oh I know how you need me, my darling,” she said, pressing her pelvis against his leg, “and I do so want it to be
perfect
for us. Come to my bedroom at midnight,” she said again, stealing away, one hand outstretched to him as she went in the back door—and a good thing, too, for Daddy Christian’s big Plymouth was just pulling in the drive at that very moment.

That evening at dinner, Mr. Christian was unfolding his napkin as he asked, frowning seriously:

“Have a good day?”

“So-so,” said Candy, toying with the cottage cheese and peach salad before her and avoiding her father’s eyes.

“Hmm,” he said, “nothing wrong, is there?”

“Oh, no,” said the girl lazily, “no, no.”

“Hmm,” said Mr. Christian. He cleared his throat. “Well, Aunt Ida wants us to come over for Sunday dinner tomorrow.”

Candy continued eating.

“I don’t know whether we should go or not,” said her father in a controlled voice. “I mean, there’s not much point in going if you’re just going to sulk all the time.”

She glared at him furiously, while he cleared his throat, seeming more at ease now that he had roused her anger.

“Well,” he went on, “I mean, if you’re in one of your
moods,
we don’t want to inflict it on Aunt Ida and the others, do we? There’s not much point in that, is there?”

“As far as I’m concerned,” said Candy sharply, “there’s not much point in
anything
around here!”

And she left the table in a huff.

Mr. Christian gave his exasperation-sigh and went on with his peach salad, unable to keep his fork from shaking a little, but managing, with certain effort, not to drive it suddenly into his chest.

A
T ELEVEN-THIRTY
that night, Candy had another bath—a bubble bath this time steeped with pine-fragrance crystals—and put on the black nightgown she had bought for the occasion. Finally, a fresh application of Tabu, and, by five minutes to midnight, she was in her bed, the lamp a glowing rose, and soft music purring from the radio.

Mr. Christian’s room was at the far end of the hall, so she was not overly anxious about his being disturbed—and the idea of giving herself to the Mexican gardener right under his nose was not without a certain excitement itself; in fact, in one sense, that was more or less the whole point.

Promptly at midnight Emmanuel arrived, entering across the roof and through Candy’s window as they had planned. Candy lay stretched on the bed, the veritable picture of provocation, her blond hair spread like golden flames across the silken rose-lit pillow, and the black shimmering nightgown clinging to her body which lay with a slight reptilian curve, lush at the breast and thigh, lithe and willowy along the waist and limbs.

The gardener stared in amazement; it was too much like a movie or a folktale for him to fully believe, as the lovely girl stretched out her arms, half closed-eyed, whispering:

“Darling, I knew you would come.”

He was dressed as he had been earlier in the day; and still wearing his sneakers, he made no noise as he crossed the carpeted floor to the bed and took the girl in his arms.

“Undress quickly, my darling,” Candy breathed, “and don’t make a sound.” She put a finger to her lips and made her eyes wide to emphasize the necessity of this.

Emmanuel was in the bed in a trice, embracing her feverishly, and snatching her gown at once up to her shoulders.

“Oh, you do need me so!” the closed-eyed girl murmured, as yet not feeling much of anything except the certainty of having to fit this abstraction to the case. But when the gardener’s hand closed on her pelvis and into the damp, she stiffened slightly: she was quite prepared to undergo
pain
for him . . . but
pleasure—
she was not sure how that could be a part of the general picture. So she seized his hand and contented herself for the moment with the giving of her left breast, to which his mouth was fastened in desperate sucking.

“Oh my baby, my baby,” she whispered, stroking his head; but the hot insulting hardness of him between her legs was distracting, and somehow destroyed the magic of her breast sacrifice. She closed her eyes again and called upon Professor Mephesto’s words; ‘The needs of man are so
many
. . . and so
aching.’
“Oh how you ache for me, my darling!” She flung both arms around his neck, as he found her tiny clitoris and pummeled it with his calloused fingers, causing her to cry out and stiffen once more in his arms; but, now she fought down the desire to seize his hand, thinking how this was the price of loveliness and the key to the beautiful thrilling privilege of giving fully—and so the gardener would have entered her then, with a terrible thrust to the hilt, so to speak . . . had not a padded scurrying sounded at that moment in the hall.

“Good Grief,” cried Candy, in a very odd voice, “it’s Daddy!” pushing her hands violently against the gardener’s chest. “It’s
Daddy!”

And true enough, the door burst open at that instant and Mr. Christian appeared, looking like some kind of giant insane lobster-man. At the sight of them he reeled, his face going purple, then hatefully black, as he crashed sideways against the wall, smashed back by the sheer impact of the spectacle itself. It was not as though he couldn’t believe his eyes, for it was a scene that had formed a part of many many of his most lively and hideous dreams—dreams which began with Candy being
ravished,
first by Mephesto, then by foreigners, then by Negroes, then gorillas, then bulldogs, then donkeys, horses, mules, kangaroos, elephants, rhinos, and finally, in the grand finale, by all of them at once, grouped around different parts of her, though it was (in the finale)
she
who was the aggressor,
she
who was voraciously ravishing
them,
frantically forcing the bunched and spurting organs into every orifice—vagina, anus, mouth, ears, nose, etc. He had even dreamed once that she asked him if it were true that there was a small uncovered opening in the
pupil of the eye,
because if it were, she had said, she would have room there (during the finale) for a miniscule organ, like that of a praying mantis to enter her as well! So that now, actually confronted by the scene, one would think he was not unprepared, yet as dreams of death do not prepare a young man for the firing squad, but perhaps only build to the terrible intensity of it, so Mr. Christian appeared now to be actually strangling with shock.