a response from Rose, and when there was none he went on. “I don’t have the vaguest idea of what it was all about, but today, when I was bringing Sarah back in from the rain, I looked up and saw Elizabeth watching me. And then, suddenly, I remembered it all. I remembered being in the woods, and watching Sarah crawl under a bush. And suddenly I wanted her. Sexually. Don’t ask me to explain why—I don’t know. It was the most awful thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I felt like I was someone else, but I was still myself. It was like I was being made to do something, or want to do something, that I didn’t want to do. And then an awful feeling came over me that … that Sarah was seducing me.”
Rose sat up. “Seducing you?” she demanded. “Seducing you? My God, Jack, she was only ten years old!”
“I didn’t say she was seducing me. I said I felt like she was. And so I started beating her. I really wanted to kill her. Oh, Jesus, Rose, it was awful.” The pain of memory swept over him once more, and he began crying softly. Rose, failing to understand what had happened to him, her own feelings in turmoil, searched for something to say.
“What’s all this got to do with the portrait downstairs?” she asked finally.
“I’m not sure,” Jack muttered. “When I look at that portrait I get the strange feeling that what happened to Sarah a year ago, happened to that girl a long time ago.”
“And that, I suppose, takes you off the hook, doesn’t it?” Rose said icily. “Suddenly, instead of being the aggressor you’re the victim? My God, Jack.”
Jack cringed at her words, but Rose plunged on.
“And what about today? Were you a victim again today? Did some strange force come over you again today? Were you not yourself again today?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw it today, Jack. I saw it all And I was ashamed that Carl and Barbara Stevens saw it too.”
Jack sat up and stared at his wife. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“I’m talking about you out there in the field with Sarah. I’m not sure which was worse, watching her charging across the field, screaming, or watching you rescue her. You were vicious, Jack. It wasn’t like you were helping her. It looked like you were attacking her! It was like it was all happening all over again.”
Jack sat up, his eyes blazing. “Are you out of your mind? Today was nothing like a year ago. Nothing at all. For one thing, I was stone sober today.”
Rose frowned. “Maybe you don’t have to be drunk,” she said. “Maybe something more serious is wrong with you.”
Something snapped inside Jack, and he grabbed Rose by the shoulders and pinned her down to the bed.
“We’ll see who I can rape,” he snarled, and as Rose lay back limply, as if he weren’t worth fighting against, his rage grew. He grabbed at her nightdress and tore it from her body. Still she lay there, taunting him with her passiveness. He hurled himself on her and tried desperately to mount her.
And he couldn’t.
Now she began squirming under him, and for a moment he wasn’t sure whether she was trying to free herself or help him.
“You can’t do it, can you?” her mocking voice came from beneath him, slightly muffled by his chest “Only little girls? Well, I’m not a little girl, Jack. I’m a woman, a real woman. Now get off me.” She pushed up against him, and once more he tried to thrust himself inside her. Again he failed.
Then the struggle began in earnest, and Rose suddenly became frightened by what might happen to her. She redoubled her efforts, and finally succeeded in freeing herself. She scrambled from the bed and turned to face him. His eyes blazing, his anger still growing, he stared at her, and Rose was frightened. She felt she knew what Sarah must have experienced in the woods that day so long ago. She reached out to pick up an ashtray from the table by the bed.
“Don’t come near me,” she screamed. “I swear, Jack, if you so much as lay a finger on me, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Jack thundered. “You’ll kill me? Do you really think I care?” He was standing now, and the bed separated them. Both of them were shouting, neither hearing the other. And then, when they both paused for