Free Dollenganger 06 My Sweet Audrina by V. C. Andrews Page A

many ways of pleasing a man, or giving him what he likes."
My aunt snorted contemptuously. "Mercy, I'm sure you never allowed Horace to play those kind of sick sex games with you."
"If she had, she wouldn't be where she is now," giggled my momma.
Vera's eyes were as wide as mine. We both sat silent and motionless. I was sure both of them had forgotten we were there.
"Really, Mercy Marie, you do have to forgive my sister, who is a bit drunk. As I was saying a moment ago, I do live with such fascinating people there is never a dull moment. One daughter dies in the woods, another comes to take her place, and the fools give her the same name--"
"Ellsbeth," snapped my momma, bolting upright from her slouched position, "if you hate your sister and her husband so much, why don't you leave and take your daughter with you? Surely there must be some school somewhere that needs a teacher. You do have the kind of sharp tongue that could really keep children in their place."
"No," said my aunt calmly, still sipping her tea, "I'll never leave this cluttery museum of junk. It's just as much mine as it is hers." She held her small finger in a crooked way I admired. Never could I manage to make mine stay like that for so long.
Odd how my aunt had such prissy manners and wore such unprissy clothes. My mother had very prissy clothes, and very unprissy mannerisms. While my aunt held her knees close together, my mother parted hers. While my aunt sat as straight as if she had a poker down her spine, my mother made herself into a rag and assumed sensual poses. They did everything to antagonize one another, and they succeeded.
During teatime I never contributed anything unless it was demanded of me, and Vera usually stayed just as quiet, hoping to hear more secrets. Vera had crawled around in back of a sofa, and there she sat with her lame leg stretched straight out, her other pulled up to her chin as she slowly leafed through that illustrated medical book that showed human anatomy. Just beneath the front cover was her cardboard man of many thick paper layers. In the first one he was just naked. When that cut-out man was turned over, he was shown with all his arteries painted red, his veins blue. Beneath that colorful plate was another man with all his vital organs showing. The last plate showed the skeleton, which didn't interest Vera at all. There was also a naked woman who could be viewed inside out, too, but she never held much interest for Vera. Long ago she had pulled the "fetus" from the womb, and in her schoolbooks she used that tabbed baby for a bookmark. Bit by bit Vera began taking the naked man apart, untabbing his numbered paper parts and studying them closely. Each organ could be fitted back into proper position when the tabs were stuck through the right numbered slots. In her left hand she clutched his male parts, even as she plucked out his heart and his liver, turning them over and over, before she again took that cardboard thing from her left hand and examined it in great detail.
How strangely men were made, I thought, as she put the man back together and he came out right. Then she started again to take him apart. I turned my eyes away.
By this time both my mother and Aunt Ellsbeth were more than a bit drunk.
"Is anything as wonderful as you thought it would be?"
Wistfully, Momma met my aunt's softened gaze. "I still love Damian, even if he hasn't lived up to his promises. Maybe I was only fooling myself anyway, thinking I was really good enough to be a concert pianist. Maybe I married to keep from finding out just how mediocre I really am."
"Lucietta, I don't believe that," said my aunt with surprising compassion. "You are a very gifted pianist and you know it as well as I do. You just let that man of yours put doubts in your head. How many times has Damian soothed you by saying you wouldn't have succeeded if you had gone on?"
"Lots and lots and lots of times," chanted my mother in a silly, drunken way that made me want to cry.