Dollenganger 02 Petals On the Wind by V. C. Andrews

foolishly, they discussed whether they should save their bodies for their husbands. Should they pet with clothes on or off--or go "all the way"--and how did they stop a guy after they had "innocently" turned him on?
Because I felt so much wiser than the others I didn't contribute anything. If I dared to speak of my past, of those years when I was living "nowhere" and the love that had sprung up from barren soil, I could imagine how their eyes would pop! I couldn't blame them. No, I didn't blame anyone but the one who'd made it all happen! Momma!
One day I ran home from the bus stop and dashed off a long, venomous letter to my mother--and then I didn't know where to send it. I put it aside until I found out the address in Greenglenna. One thing for sure, I didn't want her to know where we lived. Though she had received the petition, it didn't have Paul's name on it, or our address, only the address of the judge. Sooner or later though, she'd hear from me and be sorry she did.
Each day we began bundled up in heavy, woolen, knitted leg-warmers, and at the bane we exercised until our blood flowed fast and hot and we could discard the woolens as we began to sweat. Our hair, screwed up tight as old ladies' who scrubbed floors, soon became wet too, so we showered two or three times a day-- when we worked out eight or ten hours on Saturdays. The barre was not meant for holding onto tightly, but was meant only for balance, to help us develop control, grace. We did the plies, the tendus, and glisses, the fondus, the ronds de jambe a terre--and none of it was easy. Sometimes the pain of rotating the hips in the turnouts could make me scream. Then came the frappes on three-quarter pointe, the ronds de jambe en Pair, the petite and grande battlements, the developpes and all the warmup exercises to make our muscles long, strong and supple. Then we left the barre and used the center arena to repeat all of that without the aid of the barre.
And that was the easy part--from there on the work became increasingly difficult, demanding technical skills awesomely painful to do.
To hear I was good, even excellent, lifted me sky-high . . . so there had been some benefits gained from dancing in the attic, dancing even when I was dying, so I thought as I plied un, deux, and on and on as Georges pounded on the old upright piano. And then there was Julian.
Something kept drawing him back to Clairmont. I thought his visits were only ego trips so we could sit in a circle on the floor and watch him perform in the center, showing off his superior virtuosity, his spinning turns that were blurrily fast. His incredible, leaping elevations defied gravity, and from these grand fetes he'd land goose-down soft. He cornered me to tell me it was "his" kind of dancing that added so much excitement to the performance.
"Really, Cathy, you haven't seen ballet until you see it done in New York." He yawned as if bored and turned his bold, jet eyes on Norma Belle in her skimpy see-through, white leotards. Quickly I asked why, if New York was the best place to be, he kept coming back to Clairmont so often.
"To visit with my mother and father," he said with a certain indifference. "Madame is my mother, you know."
"Oh, I didn't know that."
"Of course not. I don't like to boast about it." He smiled then, devastatingly wicked. "Are you still a virgin?" I told him it was none of his business and that made him laugh again. "You're too good for this hick place, Cathy. You're different. I can't put my finger on it, but you make the other girls look clumsy, dull. What's your secret?"
"What's yours?"
He grinned and put his hand flat on my breast. "I'm great, that's all. The best there is. Soon all the world will know it." Angry, I slapped his hand away. I stomped down on his foot and backed away. "Stop it!"
Suddenly, as quickly as he'd cornered me, he lost all interest and walked away to leave me staring.
Most days I'd go straight home from class and spend the evening with Paul. He