The Tight White Collar by Grace Metalious Read Free Book Online Page A

her tight little nipples.
    â€œPlease,” said Lisa. “Please.” And she did not know why she begged him, nor for what.
    To Lisa and Chris, as to many young people in the United States and to the majority in northern New England, the idea of sex was not an entity in itself. Sex was the hand within the glove of love. The words, “I want you,” existed for Lisa and Chris only as words to be spoken after “I love you,” because if one loved, deeply and truly, then sex was all right. It was justifiable and could be enjoyed without guilt.
    â€œLisa, I love you.”
    â€œAnd I love you, Chris.”
    â€œHow much?”
    â€œAll there is, darling. All there is.”
    â€œDarling, do you want to?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOh, honey, I want you so much.”
    â€œAnd I want you.”
    â€œHoney, sometimes with girls—I mean, I read in a book that sometimes it hurts a girl the first time.”
    â€œI don’t care. I love you. I belong to you.”
    â€œNot in the car.”
    â€œNo. Not in the car.”
    â€œOutside? On the ground?”
    â€œYes.”
    Chris had been graduated from high school less than a month and was working in the fruit store with his mother and father when Lisa told him that she thought she might be pregnant.
    â€œOh, my darling,” said Chris, “you’ll have to go to the doctor’s at once. Tomorrow morning.”
    â€œI can’t,” said Lisa, suddenly frightened. “If I go to Dr. Dorrance he’ll run right to my mother and tell.”
    â€œI could take you to Boston or someplace like that. Nobody knows us down there. I haven’t got much money, though.”
    â€œNo, wait. There’s Dr. Cameron over at Cooper Station. In fact, there’s two of them over there. The old one and the young one. I’ll go see the young one. He wouldn’t tell on anybody. At least, I don’t think he would.”
    â€œHoney?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIf you are, you’re going to have to tell your mother anyway. We’ll have to get married.”
    â€œNobody
has
to marry me, Christopher Pappas,” cried Lisa, crying out in her fear and uncertainty, crying out because she knew she loved Chris and Oh, God, what if he didn’t really love her and was just trying to do the right thing now that she was caught. “Nobody
has
to!” she said.
    â€œHoney,” he said against her cheek. “Honey, I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant that we’ll be getting married sooner than we expected to, that’s all. I love you, darling. I love you with all my heart and soul and brain and body.”
    â€œDarling,” she whispered, and was quiet again. “I love you, too.”
    â€œThen nothing else matters,” said Chris, feeling the old, old words on his tongue without even knowing that they were old. “Nothing matters at all as long as we have each other.”
    â€œWe’ll get married and find a darling little apartment,” said Lisa. “And I’ll fix it up so that you’ll have the nicest home in Cooper’s Mills. And then we’ll have the baby and neither one of us will ever have to go home alone to different places again. We’ll be married and we’ll never have to be separated ever, ever again.”
    Lisa went alone to Cooper Station. Chris had to work in the fruit store that afternoon and besides, as Lisa said, people might think it was funny, the two of them walking into the doctor’s together and everything. She drove carefully and well, as Chris had taught her to do, on the road to Cooper Station.
    I am carrying Chris’s child, she thought as she drove. I am carrying Chris’s child under my heart. We have mated together and I am fulfilled. He loves me and I love him and this child will be the fruit of our love.
    Lisa had read hundreds and hundreds of confession magazines and the words and phrases which filled