She tried to roll off on the other side. I grabbed her shoulder and spun her back.
She bit my hand and tried to scramble away when I pulled it back.
I placed my knee across her thighs and slapped viciously at her face.
The blow knocked her back on the pillow. I could see the white marks left by my fingers.
She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them, they were clouded and there was a wildness in them that I had never seen before.
She smiled and her arms went up around my neck, pulling me down to her. Her mouth fastened against mine. I could feel her body begin to move under me.
"Do it to me, Jonas!" she breathed into my mouth. "Now!
I can't wait any more.
I've waited so long."
Her searching fingers ran down my hip and found my core.
She turned her face into the pillow, her movements becoming more frenetic.
I could hardly hear her fierce, urgent whisper.
"Hurry, Jonas.
Hurry!"
I started to get up but she couldn't wait for me to get my clothing off.
She pulled me down again and took me inside her.
She was like a burning bed of coals.
She drew my head down to her neck.
"Make me pregnant, Jonas," she whispered into my ear. "Make me pregnant like you did to those three girls in Los Angeles.
Put your life into me!"
I looked into her face.
Her eyes were clear and there was a taunting triumph in them.
They reflected none of the passion of the body beneath me.
Her arms and legs tightened around me.
She smiled, her eyes looking into mine.
"Make me pregnant, Jonas," she whispered.
"Like your father never would.
He was afraid someone would take something away from you!"
"What- what?"
I tried to get up but she was like a bottomless well that I couldn't get out of.
"Yes, Jonas," she said, still smiling, her body devouring me.
"Your father never took any chances.
That's why he made me sign that agreement before we got married.
He wanted everything for his precious son!"
I tried to get up but she had moved her legs in some mysterious manner.
Laughing, triumphant, she said,
"But you'll make me pregnant, won't you, Jonas?
Who will know but us?
You will share your fortune with your child even if the whole world believes it to be your father's."
She rose beneath me, seeking and demanding my life force. In a sudden frenzy, I tore myself from her, just as my strength drained from me.
I fell across the bed near her feet.
The agony passed and I opened my eyes.
Her head was turned into the pillow and she was crying.
Silently I got to my feet and left the room.
All the way down the hall to my room, I kept thinking, my father cared, he really cared.
Even if I didn't see it, he loved me.
He loved me. But never enough to show it.
By the time I got to my room, the tears were rolling down my cheeks.
7.
I WAS ON THE TINY INDIAN PINTO THAT I HAD WHEN I was ten years old, galloping insanely across the dunes.