Free Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

birth of the twins, it seemed to him that the frequent savagery with which she clutched at him spoke of a Leah deeper, more impersonal, more puzzling than any he had guessed at: than any he had married. She seemed to be a woman, any woman, and not the particular young woman he loved.
    In the delirium of passion her skin went dead-white, and it seemed to him that her lovely mouth, her lovely eyes, her somewhat flared nostrils were harsh tears in that skin, the mouth especially straining for release. He could not hold her tightly enough. He could not penetrate her deeply enough. Their lovemaking gave off an odor of heat, of merciless pummeling intensity, and though they whispered to each other Leah and Gideon, and uttered their secret love words, it was not always a certainty that Leah and Gideon were involved. His taste on her anxious dry lips, her taste on his, the finest hairs of their sweat-slick squirming bodies twined together, and whole patches of skin made suddenly abrasive, raw as sandpaper: what a struggle, what a contest! Simply to keep from drowning was an effort, Gideon sometimes thought ruefully, lying exhausted beside his sleeping wife, whose breath still heaved in sleep, harsh and uneven and troubled, though the subtle rosy flush now tinted her throat and part of her face. He had thought of Leah as a ferocious virgin, in the early days of their marriage, and it had pleased him, in a sense, to pretend alarm at the remarkable strength—the remarkable physical strength—of his young wife; now the very muscularity of her desire, her choked grasping need, the curious fact (which should not have occurred to him, since he loved her so very much and wanted to protect her from all insult, even his own) that she was willing to be . . . shameless: that in the desperate agony of those last minutes of love, when it was evident that she might, she very well might, fail to reach the climax her body so violently demanded, she was willing to beg: groaning his name, half-grunting, not knowing what she said, what crude words forced their way out of her. Leah Pym, his proud young cousin, tall and broad-shouldered and supremely self-confident, knowing the value of her beauty, the value of her magnificent head of thick auburn hair, the value quite simply of her soul (which stood somewhat apart from her, detached and arrogant and quick to pass judgment on her as well as on others)—how has it happened, Gideon wondered, with guilty pleasure, that she has been so transformed?
    He thought: Is it I, Gideon, who has transformed her?
    Long ago as children they had played certain games that left Gideon dry-mouthed and terribly upset. He saw Leah rarely, he was warned against seeking her out, she was Della Pym’s daughter—Della who hated them all—and so the opportunities of meeting her, joining in games with her, were few. But he remembered one occasion. At the old brick community center in the village. When he was already too mature for such games, and likely to make trouble. (Ewan had been banished from certain activities years before: he was brash, bullying, the size of a grown man, and the other children feared him.) A game called “The Needle’s Eye.” Singing in children’s quavering excited voices, marching in a ring, girls and boys alternating, grasping hands, a game that had been played for generations, children circling, hot-faced, their eyes snatching at one another, Leah twelve years of age and a head taller than the other girls, her lovely face flushed as if with windburn, her dark eyes avoiding his. Gideon took his place on the inside of the circle and clasped hands with a Wilde girl from downriver, over the heads of the marching children, and his pulses rang with the familiar witless words he paid no attention to, for he was staring—staring—at his young cousin with the waist-long auburn hair and the small, high breasts that had begun to push against her hand-crocheted blue sweater.
    The needle’s eye that does