And I didn't hate my mother. She wasn't my mother, anyway.
I had a stepmother. And I didn't hate her. I loved her.
That was why I had brought her home.
I wanted to marry her. Only, my father said I was too young. Nineteen was too young, he had said.
But he wasn't too young. He married her a week after I had gone back to college.
I met Rina at the country club two weeks before vacation was over.
She came from back East, someplace in Massachusetts called Brookline, and she was like no one I had ever met before.
All the girls out here are dark and tanned from the sun, they walk like men, talk like men, even ride like men.
The only time you can be sure they are something else is in the evenings, when they wear skirts instead of Levi's, for even at the swimming pool, according to the fashion, they look like boys. Flat-chested and slim-hipped.
But Rina was a girl. You couldn't miss that.
Especially in a bathing suit, the way she was the first time I saw her.
She was slim, all right and her shoulders were broad, maybe too broad for a woman.
But her breasts were strong and full, jutting rocks against the silk-jersey suit that gave the lie to the fashion.
You could not look at them without tasting the milk and honey of their sweetness in your mouth.
They rested easy on a high rib cage that melted down into a narrow waist that in turn flared out into slim but rounded hips and buttocks.
Her hair was a pale blond that she wore long, tied back behind her head, again contrary to fashion.
Her brow was high, her eyes wide apart and slightly slanted, the blue of them reflecting a glow beneath their ice.
Her nose was straight and not too thin, reflecting her Finnish ancestry.
Perhaps her only flaw was her mouth. It was wide – not generous-wide, because her lips were not full enough.
It was a controlled mouth that set firmly on a tapered, determined chin.
She had gone to Swiss finishing schools, was slow to laughter and reserved in her manner.
In two days, she had me swinging from the chandeliers.
Her voice was soft and low and had a faintly foreign sound that bubbled in your ear.
It was about ten days later, at the Saturday-night dance at the club, that I first knew how much I wanted her.
It was a slow, tight waltz and the lights were down low and blue.
Suddenly she missed half a step. She looked up at me and smiled that slow smile.
"You're very strong," she said and pressed herself back against me.
I could feel the heat from her loins pouring into me as we began to dance again.
At last, I couldn't stand it any more.
I took her arm and started from the dance floor.
She followed me silently out to the car.
We climbed into the big Duesenberg roadster and I threw it into gear and we raced down the highway.
The night air on the desert was warm.
I looked at her out of the corner of my eyes. Her head was back against the seat, her eyes closed to the wind.
I turned off into a date grove and cut the motor.
She was still leaning back against the seat.
I bent over and kissed her mouth.
Her mouth neither gave nor took. It was like a well on an oasis in the desert. It was there for when you needed it.
I reached for her breast. Her hand caught mine and held it.
I lifted my head and looked at her.
Her eyes were open and yet they were guarded. I could not see into them.
"I want you," I said.
Her eyes did not change expression. I could hardly hear her voice.
"I know."
I moved toward her again. This time, her hand against my chest, stopped me.
"Lend me your handkerchief," she said, taking it from my breast pocket.
It fluttered whitely in the night, then dropped from sight with her hands.
She didn't raise her head from the back of the seat, she didn't speak, she just watched me with those guarded eyes.
I felt her searching fingers and I leaned toward her but somehow she kept me from getting any closer to her.
Then suddenly, I felt an exquisite pain rushing from the base of my spine and I almost climbed halfway out of the seat.