#mwritesgaz

You’d replied as fast as you could get your hands on paper and pen. The fourth child and only daughter of a tobacco farmer, you hadn’t much else to occupy yourself with. And truly, you hadn’t expected anything to come of it. Proficient in the written word though you were, there was not much else to recommend you. You brought a tiny dowry, skill with a sewing needle, a general knowledge of plants, and mediocre cooking to the bargaining table; he was horse man tried and tested by the challenges of the frontier.

You were under no illusions that you were the most attractive candidate.

Still, you wrote your letter. Described yourself to him as honestly as you could—neither especially pretty nor particularly accomplished, but told by friends and family to be of gentle demeanor and useful intelligence. Forgave him preemptively if he never responded, and wished him the best of luck in his search for a wife.

You’d nearly fainted dead away when his response had arrived as immediately as the next mail wagon. Hans König had addressed you by name, as intimately as if he’d known you for years, and said,

I was very pleased to receive your letter, Miss, and am terribly excited to correspond with you in the future. Although you write that you cannot imagine yourself an appropriate wife for a man of my experience, I myself cannot imagine what more you must need to be such. While I will not do you the discourtesy of making any promises with only my first letter to you, I will tell you truly that I was glad of your introduction, and hope you will grant me the pleasure of knowing you further.

Your whole family had been so excited for his response that Pa had broken out his fiddle after dinner that night, rejoicing already that his little girl’s future was secure.

What followed was a whirlwind half year of romance over letters sent back and forth so fast that you kept running out of ink for your pen. When you’d related this problem to Hans, he’d sent not only an entire box of lampblack ink, but a new steel pen, blotter, and lap desk on which to write.

There is no greater misfortune I can imagine now than to lose the pleasure of your correspondence, he’d written.

Pa had cried that day. Your mother had drawn you close and kissed your hair, whispering a thankful prayer that her baby was going to be alright.

In every letter, Hans demonstrated himself to be a kind man, thoughtful and patient, and as the relationship between the two of you blossomed, you started to believe it yourself. You had long given up on the possibility of marriage, thinking yourself too old and plain by now to offer much to any man worth marrying.

Now you stand alone on a train platform, whole life in your hands, ready to promise yourself to a man you’ve yet to meet.

There are only a few people milling about the station for you to survey. The surest way to pick Hans out from a crowd, he’d written, was by height. He towered over most people, and expressed hope in an early letter that he would not dwarf you too much.

But as you look around, no one stands out above the rest. In fact, the people here aren’t much different than what you’re used to; their simple dress and slight grubbiness prove them to be working folk, the kind you’d expect in a town like this, stockyards visible from the station. Your kind of people—at least normally.

Anticipating this meeting, you’d put on the best dress you own, a light frock with little printed flowers all over it. Your hair is braided and pinned up as fashionably as you could manage early this morning, and you’d even dabbed a little rouge on your lips for the occasion. As far as you can tell you are the cleanest, best-dressed person in the vicinity, and you notice not a few people openly staring.

The thought would usually make you blanch, but right now you hope it will only help your would-be husband to catch sight of you. You still can’t find him—

“Mrs. König!”

You whip your head in the direction of the call. Relief trickles through you, soothing an anxiety you hadn’t wanted to acknowledge yet, and then you see that stepping onto the platform is the handsomest man you’ve ever laid eyes on.

Dark skin, warm as a summer’s day. Lips soft and full like a peach fresh-picked from the tree. A serious brow over serious eyes.

Strong and lean in build, with a loose, confident swagger in his step. He approaches, his large, long-fingered hands coming to rest on the buckle of his belt as comes to stand before you.

Tall, to be sure.

But not unusually tall.

This cowboy—profession evidenced by the worn state of his attire—is not your intended husband.

Something in you falls at that.

Swiftly you berate yourself for the betrayal. Your Hans is gentle, generous, kind. So what if this man before you is attractive? Marriages must be built on more, and Hans has already given you more. His looks shouldn’t—don’t—matter to you at all.

“Not as of yet,”you reply to the cowboy, “but soon. May I help you, sir?”

He fixes you with an intense gaze. Up close, you see thick, dark lashes framing even darker eyes—the color of which, you realize, is as black as fresh-turned soil.

The smell of humus fills your memory, powerfully earthy and fresh, such that you could be on your hands and knees with your face to the ground right now. You feel the phantom of it between your fingers; rich and cool, like at the start of the planting season before the rains. So dark and fine as to live between the grooves of your fingertips for days.

“I’m Kyle Garrick,” he says, pressing a hand to his chest. “I’m a wrangler for Hans König, miss. He sent me to meet you.”

You blink. The fantasy you’d dreamed up on the train ride—of seeing Hans across the platform, recognizing him instantly, and running into his arms—finally crumbles into dust.

“Oh,” you say.

Kyle Garrick frowns. “You’re disappointed.”

“No!” you exclaim immediately. “No, he must be such a busy man, I couldn’t expect him to drop everything for me.”

The cowboy sucks his lips between his teeth, studying you for a heartbeat, then—“He is busy. Mr. König is finishing preparations for your wedding this evening. That’s why he couldn’t come.”

What disappointment had begun to sprout in your stomach immediately strangles down to the root. Joy surges in your chest like birds taking flight.

“A wedding!”

You didn’t need a wedding, you’d written to him—you were so happy merely to marry him, you couldn’t possibly ask for more. All you needed, you told him, were his hands in yours, promising before God to be your husband for the rest of your lives. You’d meant it, too.

But an actual wedding!

“Biggest the town’s seen in years,” says Kyle Garrick. “Folks haven’t talked about anything else for weeks.”

“Oh!” Then suddenly you despair. “Oh, I’m not dressed at all for a wedding. If I’d known, I would’ve worked on this dress more, I would’ve put my hair up better!”

Kyle surprises you with sudden passion. “You look perfect. You’re the prettiest thing that’s ever come into this train station, miss. This town, even.”

“Oh,” you say again. You flush hot up into the roots of your hair. Embarrassed, you avert your gaze, looking down at his worn roper boots. “I’m not, really. But it’s kind of you to say.”

His hand touches yours, the one holding onto your carpetbag. When you look back up at him, his expression is gentler.

“Mr. König will agree with me,” he says, “I promise.” He eases the handle from your grasp. Up close, he has a comforting smell. Leather, and sweet hay, and campfire smoke.

“You think so?” you ask, tightening your grasp on the letters in your other hand.

He nods. “I do. Now come on—I brought a cart. Let me take you home.”

You’ve been trying not to feel so aware of his presence, but the endeavor is impossible. He is a solid weight beside you on the driver’s seat, exuding warmth where your shoulders brush against each other, and the earthy, masculine scent of him is inescapable. Every time his elbow or knee or thigh nudges yours during the natural sway and jostle of the wagon ride, you have to keep yourself from leaping out of your skin. Ever since you stepped foot off the train, you’ve felt like a lightning rod set out in anticipation of a storm.

You ascribe it to displaced longing for your husband-to-be. You’d spent the whole journey west imagining how you’d meet, longing for the moment he took you into his arms for the first time. Gaz is a handsome man—it’s only natural that your unfulfilled anticipation would transfer onto him. Especially considering he said you were perfect.

But then said very little after that. He’d seemed—well, not friendly, but at least amicable on the train platform, so you wonder if your manners have offended somehow. He’s spent most of the drive now with his eyes ahead, partly obscured by the brim of his hat. Occasionally he glances at the letters in your hand, but otherwise does not acknowledge you.

After one such glance, your discomfort with the silence becomes too much to bear.

“I read my favorites every night,” you tell him.

If Gaz is surprised when you break the silence, he doesn’t show it. “That so,” he murmurs.

All you have is his profile, very handsome in the light. The line of his mouth is taut.

“I know it’s silly,” you continue nervously—you have a bad habit of rambling when you’re uncomfortable. Adjusting your carpetbag in your lap, you go on, “but you must understand, this is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. I never expected to marry, you see.”

He grunts.

“Much less to be a mail order bride,” you say. “I always thought I would be an old maid, for lack of available suitors if nothing else. Mama and Daddy thought I ought to learn to read and write, to improve my prospects, but most folks where I’m from don’t care much about all that.”

“I see,” replies Gaz. He still does not look at you.

“Sometimes I think it even made them like me less, like I was putting on airs, being smarter than them.” You realize immediately how arrogant you must sound. “Oh, but I don’t mean any offense! I don’t mean to suggest I have ideas above my station. It’s only just that, I wondered for years and years why no one offered for me, and it was the only thing I could think of. Why would a farmer’s daughter need to read and write? And why would a wife need to, if her duty is to tend to her children and her home? So that must be why no man has ever been very interested in me.”

You realize with horror that words are pouring out of you faster than you can keep up with them. And your driver’s attention has not shifted; his eyes remain on the road.

You look at your lap, face burning. “I’m sorry, I’m just annoying you, Mr. Garrick. I’m sorry.”

Shame grips you, tight and awkward. If you’d wanted to endear yourself to this cowboy at all, you’ve already failed.

But Gaz finally says, “Most men are idiots.” You look at him; he does not look at you. “I’ve only just met you, and I like you fine.”

He says it matter-of-factly, as if no more need saying on the subject. Simple and to the point; an economy of feeling you imagine must be characteristic of men in this part of the country.

Hans was like that too, in his letters. Communicating feeling without dancing around it, with a bluntness that ends up soft in its honesty.

It eases the tension frothing poisonous in your belly. “Thank you,” you say.

You ride in silence for a stretch. A cool breeze catches the free-floating ends of your hair, rustles along in the tall grass by the wayside. The steady thump thump thump of the horse’s hooves, and the creak of tackle and leather, are the only sounds populating the air.

Home was quiet like this, too; the fields stretching endless and green beneath the sky, the silence there so blank and open that birdcall traveled for miles, and the lowing of the family milk cow sounded sometimes like the trumpet of God.

You peek again at Kyle Garrick. There’s a furrow to his brow, the kind a man gets when he’s in a mood and won’t admit it if asked.

“I’m sorry,” you say again, quietly, because he made you feel better about things, and you’ve done little more than whine.

He finally looks at you, the edges of his face lined and glowing in the evening light. Studies you, for a moment. The furrow eases.

“No,” he says, “I’m sorry, Miss. I don’t mean to be short with you. I’m afraid manners are secondary on a ranch, without a good woman nearby to remind about ‘em.”

You give him a small smile. “Have you worked for Hans very long?”

He turns his gaze back to the road. “Six or seven years, now.”

You toy with the clasp of your bag; you’re brimming with questions. “Is he really all that tall?”

“Oh, yes,” Gaz says. “Like a giant.”

“What’s he like?”

Gaz gives a great breath through pursed, full lips. “Fair, I guess. Asks a lot of us—but then most bosses out here will. Worked for his father for a few years before him, too.”

“You must be a good hand then,” you say.

“I work hard,” says Gaz. “That’s all that matters.”

“I’m sure Hans is grateful,” you reply. “He must trust you very much, to send you for me.”

The furrow returns. “He must.”

It becomes clear to you that something is bothering him, and it’s nothing you will resolve between now and when you make it to the ranch. Perhaps it has something to do with you—a new face, an unknown quantity that threatens to knock the balance of his livelihood askew.

You sigh a little. Of course, you should have expected to have to win Hans’ people over. Their loyalty to the late Mrs. König will inevitably be challenged by your arrival.

Neither of you speak again—you decide not to push what little grace Kyle Garrick has given you, and he does not volunteer any more conversation. The rest of the ride is unremarkable, leaving room for anticipation to grow in your stomach; soon the wagon crests the slope of a hill, and your destination comes into view.

Long Mask Ranch sits at the base of a range of mountain foothills, fed and watered emerald green by spring runoff. You’ve been on Hans’ land for a while now; opening up before you is the ranch proper. A collection of buildings form a semicircle around a large corral in the valley: stables, a barn, some cabins, and a large two-story gabled manor, painted white.

The sun sinks further toward the horizon as you approach, painting the world in liquid orange. Figures resolve themselves, people moving tables and chairs around, and on the manor’s front porch, observing the proceedings, stands a tall man in a rancher’s coat and hat.

Lightning suddenly bolts through you. You sit very, very still as Gaz pulls the wagon through a cast iron archway adorned with LMR at the apogee. Your heart thrums in your throat like a picked guitar string. When you finally come to a stop, the man’s head turns to toward you.

At the worst possible moment, shyness grips you. You look around, at anywhere but him, at the house, the corral, the cowboy beside you.

You startle to meet Gaz’s eyes. The expression he wears is a mask of seriousness.

“This is it,” he says.

Your voice leaves your chest trembling. “Thank you, Mr. Garrick.”

“Just Gaz is fine, Miss.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” you reply. Propriety feels like the only solid thing to cling to just now.

He looks away. The line of his mouth tightens. “Of course,” he says.

He dismounts the wagon in one smooth motion, boots hitting the packed earth hard. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the tall man start his way over to you. Gaz rounds the back of the wagon, and you give your bag to him once he’s at your side. He offers his hand to help you down.

You’re dazed as you take it, lightheaded as suddenly the present moment becomes very, very real. It’s warm, his hand; rough in all the places you expect a cowboy’s hand to be. Yet there’s something soft in the way your palms meet, how the dips and contours align with each other and fit together. You’re shaking very hard as you ease your way from the seat, gripping him tightly until your feet meet the ground, and his grip circles yours with a solidness to it in a way unlike any man has ever held you.

You meet his eyes again when he hands you your bag. Gaz gives your hand a squeeze, averts his gaze, and lets you go.

“There she is!” an accented voice announces.

You pull your gaze from Kyle Garrick and the mystery of his tension with you, and turn to face your intended husband.

Hans König has loomed large in your imagination for half a year. He’d described to you what he looked like, of course, as best he could, but you find as you look upon his face that no written word can convey what it means to meet for the first time the man you will marry. You’d fallen in love with someone formless, absent, but inscribed in other ways with enough distinction to nurture your tender feelings.

Looking upon him now, though…his appearance offers nothing to that distinction. He’s neither ugly nor handsome. As he comes to stand before you, you think he rather looks like every other middle-aged man you’ve met in your short life, although certainly much taller. You meet his eyes—pale blue, as he’d related—and the rush of love you’d expected to feel, once you knew who he was, simply does not come.

This man is a stranger to you.

You reprimand yourself immediately. He isn’t a stranger. You’ve known him for six months. His face is simply not one you have attached any love to yet; the measure of his character is contained in the stack of paper in your hands. In the promises he made to you to make your quietest dreams come true.

So you smile the way you’d dreamed you would—like watching the sun crest the horizon after a long night of darkness, seeing the bounty of the near future coming toward you. Summoning joy by making room for it to exist.

“Hello, Hans,” you say, “it’s me.”

Hans König steps forward. He looms over you truly, now, eclipsing your vision. “It is you, indeed.”

Without another word, right there in front of Gaz, Hans grips your shoulders, bends down, and kisses you on the mouth.

Your brows shoot upward. It’s the first time anyone has ever kissed you. His lips are…hard, and motionless against yours. Almost perfunctory. You are so shocked he’s done it that you don’t think to respond, and then as suddenly as it happened, it’s over. He pulls away, pats your shoulders with a little smile, and then looks at Gaz.

“Get that wagon put away and then go help the others,” says Hans to the cowboy, slinging one arm around your shoulder.

Your brows lift further. Is that all he has to say to him, for delivering you safe and sound?

Gaz doesn’t seem to share your feelings. “Yes, sir,” is all he says, even and toneless.

But he looks between you and his employer for more than just the span of a heartbeat. Eyes going from him, to you, to the arm around your shoulders. Then he meets your gaze, expression stony.

If Gaz is wary of your presence here—if you’re going to win him over—the best time to start is now. “Thank you very much for seeing me here safely,” you say. “I was so glad of your company, Mr. Garrick.”

To your dismay, his expression only tightens. Gaz looks at Hans again, then back at you.

“You’re welcome, Miss,” he says.

Then he climbs back into the wagon, gives the reins a snap, and drives away.

next

You are not fool enough to think your experience unique. Women talked as much as girls did. Your mother’s friends were wont to complain when they thought the children out of earshot: husbands who grunted and sweated over them in the night, often without uttering a word. Sometimes not even waiting for the pain of childbirth to subside before claiming their marital due.

You just had come to believe, with every letter that arrived, that your fate would be different.

But it turns out none of this is a dream after all.

Your throat closes, then. Tears prick hot in the corners of your eyes.

Stupid, stupid girl.

You swallow hard. Sit up away from the pillows, even as the aches flare in protest.

Beside you, where your husband slept, there’s a noticeable dip in the mattress. Worn in over years of slumber, and you, you suppose, on Anna’s side of the bed.

Was Hans kind to her too, before?

Abruptly you swing your legs out from the linens, and go to find one of the dresses you brought along from home.

The house is empty when you descend the stairs, as far as you can tell. You hear the steady tick, tock of a grandfather clock somewhere in the sitting room that you hadn’t noticed yesterday, in all of the commotion of the wedding preparations. The floorboards creak beneath your feet as your grumbling stomach leads you along to the kitchen.

The space is as modern and well-appointed as the rest of the house, and bigger than any kitchen you ever imagined needed to be. A cast-iron wood stove with four burners and a large oven, a sink with a pump right there by the basin, and—you nearly stop dead at the luxury—an ice box, right there beside one long counter.

You momentarily forget the troubles of the night, crouching beside the little box in fascination. A cloud of cool fog descends when you swing open the door; you brush the tips of your fingers across the huge block of ice on the top shelf, jerking them away when the cold unexpectedly burns. Not once in your life have you ever seen so much ice in one place.

On the lower shelf, you find cuts of pork and beef, wrapped in brown butcher’s paper and tied with string. Bacon for breakfast, then, and biscuits if you can find flour. Your mother always said that a difficult thing was easier after having a meal.

You find the larder stocked with further luxury. Nowhere are the home-jarred goods that would populate your family’s pantry, garden-grown vegetables pickled in vinegar or hand-pressed jams fresh from the blackberry bushes along the road. Instead you find rows and rows of cans, factory-sealed tins of manufactured uniformity, colorfully labeled and containing everything you might have ever thought to grow yourself and more.

Beans of every variety. Corn. Carrots. Peas. Beets. Tomatoes.

How much must all this have cost? So many, and lined up deep into the back of the larder. You and Hans couldn’t possible eat them all before some of them began to spoil. Of course, if he could afford to buy so much, maybe that didn’t matter.

You find the flour, and baking powder as well. Breakfast is a quick affair after that, and thankfully so, as your stomach really begins to complain as soon as the food is ready.

There’s a small table in the kitchen—yet more luxury, you think, remembering the long dining table you saw yesterday—and it’s there you sit down to solve your hunger.

The hard wooden chair is not kind to the ache between your legs.

You bite into the bacon, crunching it to pieces. There—it’s all right. You have your breakfast. Isn’t that something to be grateful for? Breakfast, and a nice stove, and an ice box, and a kitchen so stuffed with food that you can’t imagine ever running out.

Isn’t this what a loving husband provides? A good home, for his wife to live comfortably in? Pretty dresses, like the one he gave to you last night? A nice ring on your finger—the little gem glittering in the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window?

Hans loves you. Of course. This is love.

You bite into one biscuit, hot and steaming from the pan and burning your tongue. Your mother can make them better, but you tried the best you could to follow the recipe she taught you.

The front door opens outside of the kitchen. Something quick and sharp travels up your spine. Heavy boots step inside—your husband, come looking for you—you freeze without realizing it, holding half-chewed food in your mouth—

“Mrs. König?” calls Kate Laswell, the foreman, and you relax.

“In here,” you call, after swallowing.

Laswell enters the kitchen, and turns to you, at the table. She’s dressed in mens’ clothes, dusty trousers and a heavy jacket over a button-up shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat still on her head. She looks like she’s dressed to travel.

“I’m afraid I can’t show you the accounts today, like I said I would,” she tells you, no preamble, no pleasantries.

You remember then your brief conversation with her the previous night—and Hans’ disapproval at the idea.

You set down your biscuit. “Good morning, Miss Laswell. Why not?”

“I’m going over to visit the Vargas place. We’ve been working on a leasing deal. I’ll explain when I get back.”

“Of course,” you say. “Would—” you clear your throat, embarrassed— “Would you know where my husband might be?”

The lines of Laswell’s face tighten. She has a severe look to her that you think is always present—ranch work must harden anyone, man or woman—but there is no wedding happening around you now to distract you from the unmistakable displeasure on her face.

“Last I saw he was out with the herd,” she says shortly. “Anyway, I’ll be gone for a few days. The ledger is in the cabinet by the desk. Take a look at it if you find the time.”

She tips her hat to you before you can figure out how to respond—some part of you bristles at being given orders by someone who is now, ostensibly, your employee—and leaves the kitchen. You scramble to follow her, and catch her when she’s nearly out the door.

“Miss Laswell,” you call, “is Hans—is my husband—”

You’re not very sure what you intended to ask her, before you began the question. Nor, you realize, do you think she could answer honestly, if you asked her what you really wanted to know. It wouldn’t be her place, and it would be inappropriate of you to ask.

If you could actually work up the courage to approach it.

So you settle for, “Is my husband angry with me?”

She stops, and blinks at you. You see her look you up and down, briefly, but when she meets your eyes her expression is impossible to read.

“I have no idea,” she says, and her tone betrays nothing. “Gaz wants to see you in the stables when you have a moment today. Ma’am.”

She nods farewell at you and leaves.

The steady ticking of the grandfather clock punctuates the end of the odd exchange. Disoriented, you return to the kitchen to clear away the remnants of your breakfast, flushing in confusion.

Do you really want this?

His question rings now in your ears. Along with it come memories of the previous night. The Madame’s odd interest in you. The store owner Miss Boucher’s sidelong glance at Hans. Myriad other quirks of the brow or mouth that you only now grasp the meaning of.

Everyone knew, somehow, what was coming. Everyone except you.

And Gaz had been the only one to try and warn you.

You tug on a shawl as you step out onto the front porch, breathing in the mountain air. The morning chill hasn’t yet burned off, and the sky has yet to gain its full color. Across the clearing, Kyle Garrick is at work in the stable’s corral.

He holds one end of a long lead, attached at the other to the bridle of a red-brown horse, which trots in a wide circle around him. Occasionally, with the lunge-whip he holds in his free hand, Gaz taps the horse’s hindquarters, redirecting it patiently whenever it tries to move inward or otherwise deviate from its orbit.

Horses are scared creatures, Miss, I don’t know if you know this, Hans had written. You must be gentle when you train them, or destine them to a lifetime of anxiety.

When you approach, the horse’s attention briefly turns toward you, but Gaz taps it again and it goes back into its pacing. You have a moment to admire the long line of the cowboy’s body, the focused angles of his shoulders and hips, before he addresses you, sensing your presence without having to turn and look at you.

“Good morning, miss,” he says. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you,” you say. It feels dishonest, even if it isn’t a lie. “Good morning, Mr. Garrick.”

The horse makes its way past you, and then Gaz brings it to a stop. He winds up the lead in one hand and makes his way over to you, meeting you where you stand by the corral fence.

You can’t help but notice how handsome he looks in the light of late morning. The serious expression on his face is the same one he’d worn the day before; you suspect it’s his natural disposition.

You remember the brief smile he’d shown you last night, before Hans had taken you away, and your cheeks warm despite yourself.

“I thought I might introduce you to the horses today,” he says. “If you’ve got the time, that is.”

“Oh,” you gasp, suddenly eager, “Please! I’ve been looking forward to it ever since Hans proposed! I told him about the two old nags we had on our farm, to pull our wagon, and he said—”

We must get you on a proper horse, then, to show you the true pleasure riding may offer.

You stop mid-sentence. Something about what Hans had written rings in your memory now with a different note. It seems…mocking, almost. Imbued purposefully with a meaning intended to escape you, given you had not the experience enough to catch it.

Shame blooms painfully behind your breastbone.

“…He mentioned he’d bring me to meet them,” you say lamely.

The smile Gaz gives you doesn’t reach his eyes. “He’s very busy, or I suppose he would be today.”

“I suppose,” you echo.

Gaz inhales deeply, and then he gestures to the red-brown horse. “Well—this here is Newt. I’ve been getting him used to the bridle today.”

“Hello, Newt,” you say to the horse. You reach a hand out, briefly, but then pull it back; your instinct is to let the horse get your scent, like you might with a farm dog, but you don’t know if you should. Your father had always handled the nags.

Gaz notices, and brings one big hand to Newt’s long face, squeezing the arch of his muzzle. The horse’s eyes droop in obvious pleasure.

“He’s a big baby,” says Gaz, expression gentling. “I’m trying to see if he’ll make a good cutter, but it’s too early to tell.”

You reach out again. Newt’s velvety nostrils flare as he inhales, and then his hot breath bathes your hand and wrist. You suppose you have his approval, because Newt simply works his teeth a little and makes no indication of displeasure.

“A cutter?”

“Yeah. The kind of horse that can cut a steer out from the herd so you can drive it someplace else,” Gaz explains. “Horses either got cow-sense, or they don’t. Here, come around inside and I’ll show you the rest.”

Long Mask Ranch, Hans had written, built its reputation on the quality of its quarter horses. In the early days of its inception, his father had struck an extremely lucrative deal providing the US Army with its cavalry mounts, which had turned out to be a perfect way for the ranch’s reputation to spread. Even after the army mostly withdrew from the region, every state in the surrounding countryside knew: if you wanted good horses, you went to Long Mask.

“These are the yearlings,” Gaz explains as he leads you through the stable. “Just now we’re getting them trained to follow directions. Won’t be riding ‘em for a couple years yet.”

He puts Newt away and beckons you to follow. In the neighboring stall, one of the horses pokes its head out over the gate. It’s a light-colored colt, yellowish in the body and white-maned.

“This is Gus,” Gaz says, scratching its fuzzy chin. “He’s a big flirt, yeah, aren’t you, boy?”

You also reach out to give Gus a pat, and the colt chuffs and butts his nose into your hand, proving Gaz’s accusation. You can’t help giggling a little.

When another horse across the building snorts, Gaz chuckles, and leads you in the direction of the noise. “Ah, yeah, and that’s Woodrow. Him and Gus are always goin’ at it, but you won’t ever see better friends.”

Woodrow is dark gray horse with a distinctly unamused face. He accepts a pat on the forehead with what you can only describe as resigned patience. Gaz feeds him a sugar cube from one pocket for his trouble.

He takes you further along down the line of stalls. You meet a spirited filly named Elmira, and a colt beside her named July whose love for her is unrequited.

“We’ve already gelded him, so it wouldn’t matter much anyway,” Gaz relates.

He speaks fondly of every horse as you meet them, with the familiarity of long days working beside each of them. It relaxes him, you realize, to speak of them—the hard set of his expression has softened, the serious line of his brows eased from their iron setting.

It makes him look—not younger, you decide, but properly his age. A cowboy just beginning the best years of his career, still hale and fit enough to meet the rough demands of the job, but with enough experience under his belt to confront any challenge with confidence.

Such confidence is obvious in the way he moves. He walks loose and easy through the stable, his every step as assured as the sunrise the next morning. The line of his broad shoulders, the swooping curve of his back—they tell you at a mere glance that home is in this place, working with these creatures, and there could be nothing more Kyle Garrick might long for besides.

Envy twists your intestines around its fingers. There’s an empty space inside of you that you’d been expecting, as your wedding vows had finally taken flight, to fill with that same feeling.

At the end of the stable, in a stall in the back corner, a horse pokes its head out over the gate. It’s bigger than the yearlings, with a pale face and a dark, gray muzzle. It looks right at you, with such a clear focus that it startles you.

“Ah,” says Gaz, when he sees. “Was wondering if she’d notice us.”

“She?”

He nods. “A mare. She’s…difficult.”

The mare stares at you, with deep, night-black eyes.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

Gaz works his lips over his teeth. “Mr. König bought her last year off another rancher who was ‘bout fit to shoot her. She’s a thoroughbred, and she ain’t never met a white man she likes. As like to buck a man off as to let him ride.”

“Oh,” you say.

Gaz leans against the wall between two stalls. “Mr. König thought he might be able to break her. So far she hasn’t gotten him off her, but she won’t let him come near without putting up a fight. I’m the only one can saddle ‘er.”

You frown. “Why would he ride a horse that doesn’t want to be ridden?”

At that, Gaz’s eyes go cold. Shockingly cold, like an empty winter’s night. “Suppose he just likes taking what he wants, I guess.”

You should reprimand him. You know it immediately. It’s no way to talk about his employer, and certainly nothing he should ever say in front of you, his employer’s wife.

But you remember the blood, and still feel the ache. You have to look away from him, ashamed. Embarrassed.

You cannot defend your husband, and he must know it.

“I imagine he must know what he’s about,” you mumble.

Gaz gives a derisive snort. “I don’t know about that. He’s of a mind to start with thoroughbreds, but she will not let him breed her. Damn near killed every stallion he’s brought her to try.”

It hits you so sharply that you inhale with sudden pain, pressure knifing at your eyes. You turn away from Gaz entirely now, pressing your hands to your chest. Every ache from the night previous ricochets around inside you again, knocking all the way down into your bones.

You tip your head upward, as if it will prevent the gathering tears from falling. What’s worse, Gaz puts a hand on your shoulder behind you. You flinch at the touch, hips aching where Hans had bruised them in his grip.

“I’m sorry, Miss,” Gaz says softly. He sounds like he means it. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

He knows exactly what ails you. And why wouldn’t he? He’s known his employer for years. He’s worked this ranch for longer than you’ve even known of its existence.

He knew the previous Mrs. König, who first endured Hans’ attentions.

You are a terrible fool, and you are the last to know it.

He doesn’t remove his hand as you tremble. He squeezes you gently, the same caress he’d given to the young colt Newt. It is so kind that it nearly breaks you.

“Here,” Gaz murmurs, “let’s see something.”

You turn back to him; he takes your hand, and leads you to the back of the stable. The mare follows the two of you with her eyes, expression unchanging as you approach her.

Closer now, she is a stunning creature. You’ve never seen anything like her. Her coat is silvery-gray, with darker patterns all over her body, like ink absorbed into paper and then laid beneath a light rain. Her legs and mane are the same dark color as her muzzle, and there is a deep intelligence in her eyes as she beholds you.

“You might be the first woman she’s ever seen up close,” Gaz says.

He takes up a position behind you, and turns your hand over in his, opening your fingers. Then, slowly, so the horse can see it, he brings them to her face, pressing your fingertips to the soft whorl on her forehead.

The mare’s eyes do not leave you. She exhales a little through relaxed nostrils, chuffing, flicking her ears toward you. You play with the starburst of pale hair, following the direction it grows; her lids, heavy with thick, black lashes, drop a little.

“I’ll be,” Gaz murmurs behind you. “I think she might like you, miss.”

A loud BANG claps against the wall on the other end of the stable, and the mare jerks her head immediately, flinging your hand away. She grunts, snorts, and dances away from the gate, shaking her head, eyes flaring wide.

You and Gaz both look to the commotion—

Your husband stands in the open doorway, cast in a dark silhouette by the late morning light.

“Just what the hell are you doing?”

next

There’s a bit of a bustle going on as Hans tugs you along—you hear movement in the kitchen, punctuated by the clang of dishes moving to and fro. A rough voice grinds out something short, and a couple of cowboys emerge with covered dishes that they set on the dining table before they return back into the fray. In the sitting room, an older woman with short, sandy brown hair sits at a desk, spectacles perched on the end of her nose. She glances up at you, betrays no interest, and then ignores you.

“You’ll meet everyone at the ceremony,” Hans says. He directs you up the stairs. “Right now you need something nice to wear.”

“O-oh,” you say, lifting the hem of your skirt as you climb the steps. The fabric, purchased at a discount after you’d saved pennies and nickels for months, suddenly feels thin and insubstantial between your fingers.

Hans brings you into the main bedroom, equally well-designed with molded wood paneling and brass lanterns on the walls, where he goes to a chest at the foot of the massive bed four-poster bed. Everything you’ve seen so far in this house is much finer than what even the most well-to-do farmers back home could display; you used to imagine that wealth like this could only be within the reach of select few businessmen on the east coast. You never imagined you’d have the chance to marry into it.

“I think this should suit you,” says Hans, turning to you with a stack of clothing in one hand.

You take it from him when he proffers it—a skirt, blouse, and jacket, you find. The fabric is silky in your hands, glossy and cool to the touch and very fine. You shake out the skirt; yards of bustled fabric tumble open to reveal pleated gathers, elegant bows, and velvet trim. The paired jacket is much the same, with pearl buttons down the front, and the accompanying blouse is a weave of tight, delicate lace.

Your earlier fears are soundly confirmed; you are in no way dressed for a wedding to Hans König. Gaz had only been trying to be kind; being here, now, seeing the kind of splendor Hans lived with every day, no one could make the mistake that you could measure up on your own.

“Thank you, Hans,” you say, face warming with embarrassment.

“Think nothing of it,” says Hans, looking you up and down expectantly. “Go on.”

You blink. “Ex—excuse me?”

Hans raises his brows as if it should be obvious. “Why, let’s see you in it, dear girl.”

You blanch. Surely he isn’t suggesting…“But—well, Hans, we aren’t—we haven’t—”

“My dear, I’ve already promised to marry you. Why would I go to such expense on a wedding merely to fool you into showing me your underthings?”

You drop your gaze to the floor, cheeks burning. “It’s not proper.”

“Bah,” says Hans. He takes the clothes back from you, tosses them onto the bed, and brings his hands to the buttons down your front. “It’s not like I won’t see this again in a few hours.”

You are rooted to the spot. He unbuttons your dress with an alacrity that startles you; in a few short moments, he makes an opening wide enough to slip over your shoulders, and unceremoniously he pushes the collar open and lets the dress drop to the floor.

You blink several times. You wonder if this is how lambs feel, when shorn for the first time; do they feel suddenly like they’ve been skinned? Does the air suddenly feel much closer, more real than it had before? You remember shearing season on a neighbor’s farm, the angular planes of shortened fleece cropped close to twitching flesh. The sheep had looked unfinished after the deed was done—like wooden figurines only partly whittled.

When you look to Hans’ face, you find him gazing at the tight space where your chemise tucks into the line of your corset. Then, as if in a dream, he reaches out with one huge hand and cups the mound of one breast.

The air vacates your lungs. It’s the first time a man has ever touched you this way.

When young ladies of a certain age gather to socialize, matters of discussion inevitably tend toward the prurient. Your peers delighted in sharing the wealth of erotic experience they’d accrued; trysts in larders, late graveyard meetings, dizzying accounts of hands and mouths in places that sent shame pumping hot and curious through your veins. You lived vicariously through their adventures; opportunities for your own, with three older brothers and a protective father, were nonexistent.

The embarrassing fact is that in matters of your marital duties, you received no practical education.

The one time your mother, a modest woman, saw fit to tutor you, she’d taken you out to the small enclosure in which the family goats were kept. The animals were useful for milk and occasionally meat, so there was always a breeding pair at hand. This occasion, they served the additional use of instruction; the male was rutting.

Your mother had made you watch as the billy mounted the nanny, and shoved its little goat prick into her hindquarters. The billy seemed mindless with want, ferocious, gyrating its hips uncomfortably, which the nanny took with what seemed like resigned patience, if it was paying attention at all. Once the billy finished, it dismounted, chewed its cud a little bit, and walked off. The nanny seemed unperturbed, rather detached from the whole thing, and similarly continued with whatever it had been doing before.

“It’s about like that,” said your mother, unable to look you in the eye.

So you have little knowledge of the matter.

And you have no idea what to do now, as your husband-to-be fondles you and stares down at you with what seems like only idle interest. Hans’ thumb brushes over the space where your nipple would be, hot even through layers of cotton and whalebone. The fine hairs on your arms raise, standing straight up.

What are you supposed to do now? Touch him back? Your stomach turns over at the thought. Even if you wanted to, you have no idea how. Hans is touching you so casually, as if you’ve been his wife for years, but you are as poor in wifely instinct as you are in everything else.

“Lovely,” he says, eyes locked on the place where your chest is rapidly rising and falling.

You inhale shakily. This is fine. He wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t—of course it’s all right, you’re to be married within the hour. It’s only your breast, and only his hand, and it’s over your clothes. It’s fine.

“May—” your voice comes out dry. You clear your throat. “May I dress now, Hans?”

He smiles. You note that he has a thin-lipped smile, and his eyes do not crinkle at the corners. “Of course.”

When the guests have all arrived, when the world around you is bathed in the orange-gold light of the setting sun, and when the mandolin plays the bridal chorus, you join Hans König under an archway of lupine and Indian paintbrush. Evening gives way to night as the last day of your old life comes to a close, ending as you say the words that until now you’ve only whispered in the night at your bedside.

For better—for worse—as long as you both shall live. Over and over again, until your tongue recognized the shape of them like the Lord’s Prayer. As if practicing them enough would speed the hour to you all the sooner in which their vow became real.

Hans kisses you for the second time, and then together, arm in arm, you turn to face the congregation’s applause.

Stars begin peeking white faces through the dimming sky as the band strikes up a tune, and as the reception commences, you must shake hands with the whole county. The priest John MacTavish insists upon introducing himself first—a younger man, with vivid blue eyes and an unusual haircut, gives his congratulations in a husky Scottish brogue entirely inappropriate for a man of the cloth. He’s followed by the sheriff, Simon Riley, who practically chases him off—another tall man, near to your husband’s height, and twice as broad. Curiously, he wears a bandanna across the lower half of his face. His greeting to you is gruff, short—polite in a way that seems unnatural for him.

Next is a slightly older woman, splendidly dressed in lace-trimmed taffeta. She comes over to kiss your cheeks in the French style. Hans ducks his head as she smiles at you; you can’t help but feel similar trepidation. She is terribly striking, with delicate creases on either side of her mouth and a mysterious twinkle in her eye.

“The hotel in town is my establishment,” she tells you. “The bath house, as well.”

“Oh,” you say, “how lovely.”

Her smile quirks at the corners; she looks at Hans, then back to you, and softly chucks your chin. “You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you, darling?”

“Yes, Madame, thank you,” your husband says quickly as your face sets to blazing. “I believe others would like to speak to us, as well, if you don’t mind.”

She gives you another enigmatic smile, tightens the light chiffon wrap around her shoulders, and leaves you to the banker and his wife, who both eagerly step up to talk your ear off.

Farmers, other ranchers, ramblers and gamblers and trappers; it seems everyone in the state has come to pay you their respects, and they all want to meet you at the exact same time. The rough voice you heard in the kitchen manifests itself in the form of a burly man with mutton chops, who introduces himself as John Price the saloon owner. A young woman with an unsmiling face named Ms. Boucher tells you your first purchase at her dry goods store will be discounted by five percent, as a welcome gift from her to you. She punctuates the statement with a narrow-eyed look at your husband, but you have no time to wonder at it before the next guests capture your attention.

A whole line of Hans’ cowboys, headed by the woman you saw working at the writing desk when you arrived, form up to tell you their names and pledge you their loyalty, still dressed in their wrangling leathers but bathed and combed and polished for the occasion nonetheless. The woman introduces herself as Kate Laswell, the foreman.

“I took care of the accounting after Anna passed,” Laswell says to you. “Tomorrow I’ll go through the books with you. It’ll be your job from now on.”

“Now, Kate, you shouldn’t discuss business at my wedding,” says Hans, politely, but somewhat terse. “And besides, that would be far too much for my new bride.”

“Hans, I told you,” you say earnestly, referencing a summer letter, “I want to be a part of things.”

He smiles genially at you—but the expression seems tight. “Of course, dear.”

“Tomorrow,” Kate says to you. Curiously, she looks you up and down. Then, “You’ll need to see the tailor, as well, I think.”

Her words are not said unkindly, but they shame you anyway, reminding you just how poorly matched as yet you are to this life. When you’d put the dress on earlier, it had been immediately clear to you that it was not made to your measurements, but you hadn’t thought it would be so obvious to anyone else. Only Hans’ cowboys proceeding to introduce themselves saves you from having to respond.

One is conspicuously absent.

Unexpectedly, it hurts. Even though it shouldn’t. Gaz had only driven you here, after all. You’ve known him less than a day. It shouldn’t disappoint you, as you keep your eyes on the moving line, that he does not come forward, but it does.

In between meeting the county folk, you manage to get a few bites of the wedding feast—prime rib, lamb chowder, baked fish, seasoned potatoes, collard greens, fried tomatoes, sourdough biscuits, and three different fruit cobblers still somehow steaming from the oven. You and Hans cut the bride’s cake, an impressive sheet of angel food and ivory buttercream that he must have procured at outrageous cost; you are not embarrassed to wolf it down in front of Hans’ guests. It’s the sweetest, softest thing you’ve ever eaten, more delicate than you ever could have imagined any food could be.

As the sky darkens overhead, the faint cloud of the milky way coalesces in the light of the waxing moon, and the band takes up a lively jig as the wedding party sallies forth to the clearing to dance arm in arm. Your husband whirls you along with them, arm around your waist, and then you’re dancing, too, and the familiar two-step lifts your flagging spirits as the cool night air runs quick, soft fingers across your burning cheeks.

So what if some cowboy hadn’t made it to your wedding? You’re dancing with your husband, after months of longing for him; everything and everyone else is inconsequential laid up against this triumph.

Faces blur in the lamplight the night falls indigo around you, and as the music changes Hans twirls you into a new set of arms in a jaunt that has everyone exchanging partners. They hold you only briefly before the music changes again, and off you bounce to another, the world spinning around you faster and faster, jubilant and surreal, and then another—

Suddenly you are in Kyle Garrick’s arms.

He catches you like lassoing a runaway horse, taking your momentum into the pillar of his body as he winds you in close. One of his hands spreads warm across your back, fingers spanning what feels like the entire breadth of your waist. His other cradles your own in his palm, long fingers folded around it like an envelope. You fit against him easily, perfectly, like a couple illustrated in a storybook.

“Mr. Garrick,” you gasp.

“Mrs. König,” he says.

Suddenly you realize you’re out of breath. You take deep gulps of air, and Gaz’s scent permeates your lungs. Lavender soap and bay rum, polished leather, sweet hay. The soft, dense curls of his hair are combed and parted a little, and the short stubble he’d greeted you with on the train platform is tonsured down flush to his jaw.

He leans in closer to you, hovers his lips near to one ear. “You changed your dress.”

He doesn’t keep pace with the other dancers, or swing you around in time with the music; he lets the world slow around you both, the music falling away as he brings the pace of your heart down with soft line of his mouth and the steady, still look in his dark eyes. His hand on your back radiates so much warmth that it cuts through the evening chill just beginning to set in, as if his palm is directly against your naked skin.

You smile meekly. “It wasn’t appropriate for a wedding.”

His dark brows pull together; his hands tighten their purchase on you. You watch him avert his eyes from you, take a great breath in through flared nostrils.

“Mr. Garrick,” you say, feeling too honest, “do you disapprove of me?”

He snaps his gaze back to you. “Why would you think that?”

You swallow. “You don’t seem very pleased, whenever we talk, is all.”

Suddenly Gaz smiles—lets out a short, sharp laugh that bares his even teeth, shows the points of his canines. “That’s not your fault. I promise you.”

“Then what is it?”

He gazes at you. Lamplight casts the angles of his face in shadow, deepens the darkness of his eyes. His shoulder is solid beneath where your hand rests, shaped hard by a life on the range; you could lay the entirety of your weight against him, you think, and he wouldn’t even sway with holding you up. There’s something very present about Kyle Garrick. Something real. It draws you in like the earth draws the moon into its orbit.

“Do you really want this?” he asks you.

You blink. “Of course I do.”

“You hardly know him.”

“I’ve known him for half a year, Mr. Garrick,” you say, somewhat unsure how much explanation you owe this cowboy. After all, you’d vowed to earn his trust, as his employer’s new wife. “I know you might have some reservations about me. I understand, really.”

“No,” says Gaz immediately, dark brows low and serious over his eyes. “Not about you.”

“Mrs. König!” an accented voice calls.

Immediately the world speeds up around you again, music crashing back into your ears, wedding guests spinning and leaping around you, and you turn to see your husband standing at the edge of the clearing.

The dancing comes to a halt at the sound of his voice; Hans outstretches one hand toward you.

“I believe it is time for us to retire,” he says.

Gaz’s hands tighten on you again. You feel the eyes of the other dancers on the two of you, tight lines of attention between you and them.

You have felt it all evening, really—the undercurrent lining every conversation, the askance looks tossed at you and your husband when no one thought you’d notice. The pervading sense of some drama playing out just outside of your comprehension.

You turn to look back at Gaz. His mouth is pressed into a hard line. The wells of his eyes are ink-dark, opaque, eclipsed by something of a shape beyond your knowing. He says nothing as he holds your gaze, only watches you with an expectation so stoic, so resigned, that you feel almost guilty for releasing him.

He lets you go as if his grasp wasn’t even tight in the first place. You turn away from him, from the stone-hard expression on his face, and go to slide your fingers into your husband’s waiting hand.

Wolf-whistles populate the night air as he smiles approvingly, nods, and leads you away. Short bursts of knowing applause behind you draw your shoulders tight together.

“Ignore them,” says Hans, tucking your hand into the crook of his arm. “They’re just fools.”

You look back over your shoulder. Gaz still stands amid the dancers, a wide berth around him. His eyes have not left you; they pierce you in the night, sharp even as the distance between you grows.

You have only one other point of reference, aside from your mother’s tutelage, for how the end of this evening might go. A topaz glimmering in the folds of your memory.

Years ago, before the shine had worn off as it usually does with older siblings, you’d worshiped your oldest brother like he was Jesus Christ returned. You’d trailed after him like a newborn pup, dogging his every step, hoping your devotion would earn you even the smallest scraps of his affection. You’d watched his comings and goings like you could divine the mysteries of God from the merest angle of his movements.

One night, far past the time when everyone should be asleep, he’d slipped out of the small three-room house your family shared. You knew, because you slept closest to the door, and by then could recognize him by the rhythm of his footsteps. Like any nosy little sibling, you’d followed him out once you were sure he couldn’t hear you behind him.

He’d made his creeping way toward the barn, his path and yours lit only by a waxing moon. You remember, sneaking along after him, noticing a dim glow emanating from the cracks in the hayloft door, and guessed that your brother had realized he’d forgotten to snuff a lantern before going to bed—and now he was going to put it out, rather than leave a hay fire to chance.

He went inside. You were about to follow (no sibling, however divine, was exempt from a good ribbing, and nearly burning down the barn was excellent blackmail fodder)—when you heard another voice.

A female voice. Soft, and sweet, and welcoming.

Very little preamble separated that revelation from the next, and what you heard in the following moments rooted you there in place; movement. Rustling. For the span of a few heartbeats, nothing except for the crickets in the fields—and then, like the moon rising on a cloudless night—a growing chorus, voices high and low, moaning together in staccato.

You’d stood there, frozen absolutely solid, as it went on. The high voice lifted higher, and higher, carried on frantic, rapid breaths, until it cut off with a shriek that muffled so fast you knew your brother had covered the girl’s mouth.

Then—quiet, shared laughter.

So you know a little more than what the goats taught you.

Hans leads you back inside the house, where the lanterns have been turned to low, orange specks of light. You fix your eyes on the nape of his neck ahead of you as the two of you climb the stairs, making your way back to the master bedroom. The cacophony of the wedding celebration is far away; he opens the door, draws you inside, and shuts it behind him.

You stand in the middle of the room, looking at him. This whole evening has felt like a dream, but as you gaze at your husband, you suddenly feel like you’re waking up. You have not been alone with Hans since you met him, not really, and you realize he hasn’t felt quite real to you because of it. You almost feel as if you can see him, for the first time, see the words that have made him up in your memory coalesce into the flesh-and-blood man standing before you.

This is him. This is Hans. This is the man you love.

Softly, you approach him. Reach up with two hands to take his face in them; press your lips, shyly, unpracticed, to his.

“Hans,” you say, more softly than you have ever said anyone’s name in your life, looking into the pale blue of his eyes.

He gazes down at you. “Let’s get undressed,” he says.

It’s the moment you expected, but it daunts you nonetheless. You nod, step away from your husband, and he sets to the task—he shucks his coat, dropping it on the floor, and unhooks his suspenders. Swiftly you turn away from him when he begins unbuttoning his shirt, face blazing—of course, you’ve seen men undress before, you have three brothers, but this—this—

The reality of what you are about to do douses you all at once, soaking you to the bone. When you bring your hands up to the buttons of your bodice, they are trembling; you can barely get the tiny pearls between your fingers to undo them. You hear more clothes land on the floor behind you as you struggle, and then nothing. Stillness.

His eyes are heavy on your back. He is silent as you finally get the jacket off, and the blouse along with it; he is silent as you push the skirt down over your hips, the garment piling on the floor.

Your whole body is shaking by the time you’re down only to your chemise, shivering like a foal on new legs as you bare your shoulders. You close your eyes. There’s no need to be afraid as you shuffle the garment down your back. It’s only your husband behind you, looking at you as you bare your buttocks, as you step out of the split shorts, as the cool night air caresses your naked belly.

“That’s enough,” Hans says behind you when your hands go to the ties on your stockings.

You go still.

“Get on the bed, now.”

You focus on your breathing. Long breaths, in and out, as you crawl belly-first onto the mattress, which sinks luxuriously under your weight, softer than any bed you’ve lain on in your life. Suddenly, before you have time to adjust, the mattress sinks even more under you, and an envelope of heat and weight looms over you, pressing hard onto you, bare skin and the smell of sweat and the sound of another person’s breathing over you invading your senses.

Then there’s something blunt nudging at the entrance of your sex. A hand on your hip, gripping tight. The blunt thing circles briefly, parting your folds, and then is pressing into you. Pressing in somewhere tight, somewhere that doesn’t want to open to let it in. You hold your breath. It presses harder, fighting the resistance, and then finally gets past it, just a half inch or so—and suddenly it hurts.

“Hans,” you whisper.

He hasn’t seem to have heard you. He pushes harder, just a bit further. There’s another wall of resistance, this one needling and far more solid. You gasp sharply at the dryness of it, the way his member seems to want to push your own folds up into you as it tries to get in, shoving, bludgeoning, and then, mercifully, Hans pulls away.

It’s on the tip of your tongue to suggest that maybe the two of you try this later. Clearly there is something about you that’s not ready for it—but then his hand is between your legs, smearing something slippery around, and just briefly he touches something that pulses with interest. You jolt as little sparks of pleasure dance through you but quickly burn out, and then, the blunt head of his cock is back, pushing in, much faster, much smoother, huge and hard—

Suddenly it is sharp inside you, razor sharp, paralyzing. You shriek in pain, tears welling acidic in your eyes, shocked, betrayed, and he keeps coming, an endless length of him forcing inside, making room where there is none, going somewhere it clearly must not belong—and then he groans, loud and guttural, and begins to pull out.

You don’t have enough time to mistake this for the end of it. He pulls out halfway and then rams back in, slamming against your body, punching what must be the very limit of the space he can make for himself in your body. Pain roars to life around his cock, radiating outward, a ripping and shredding that grows as he forces himself into you again, and then again, and then it’s happening for real, he’s begins thrusting so fast it knocks the breath from your lungs, slapping his hips against your backside as he grunts and groans behind you like a dumb animal. He batters some nexus of agony that sends you screaming, shrieking with every jerk of his hips, tears streaming down your face as you grip the blanket in clawed fingers.

“Please, Hans, stop, please!”you wail. “Stop, stop, stop—”

His hand grips back of your head, turning your face downward—pressing it against the bed, muffling your mouth and nose and eyes into the blanket—

He jerks against you as agony writes itself into your bone marrow. Your hands circle in on themselves so tightly you feel your fingernails bite into your palms. Any memory of laughter you ever had abandons you.

Then, suddenly, mercifully, he’s forcing himself into you as deeply as he can, groaning loud, and something warm blooms in you, squelches out warm and sticky as he pulls in and out a few more times. He stills then from his furious rutting, hanging over you, panting.

Then he pulls out. Your husband lets you go and rolls over, breathing hard on the bed. You lay absolutely dead still, shaking violently, every muscle in your body tensed up painfully tight.

“Hans,” you whimper, “Hans.”

“Mm-hm,” he hums.

“Hans.” Every nerve is vibrating with pain. “Hans, that hurt.”

There is a long silence after. So long, you start to believe that he won’t say anything; that perhaps, even, he’s fallen asleep, and your words have dropped like flies from the air between you before they reached him.

But he hasn’t fallen asleep. Your husband shuffles off the bed, lifts the linen, and shuffles back into it. The lantern light is dim in the bedroom, but light enough that you can see the nonplussed expression on his face.

“Anna got used to it,” he says finally, eyes closing. “You will too.”

And he turns on his side and says no more to you.

You lay there aching. When you drag your fingers through the slick mess between your thighs, streaks of red intermingle with the clear and the white.

Suddenly you want this day to be over. You want to close your eyes and dream that it never happened—or maybe, if you go to sleep, you’ll awaken to find that it was all a dream after all, and you’re still home, your mother cooking just outside the bedroom door. Slowly, you inch off the bed, finding the floor with your stockinged feet, and go to douse the lanterns.

The room is cold and silvery without their light. Darkness gathers in the corners, around the weak glow of moonlight failing to fully penetrate the curtains over the window. You gingerly swipe the cloth from a nearby washbasin between your legs, cleaning up the remnants of your husband’s pleasure, and then, with nowhere else to go, you return to the empty side of the bed and crawl stiffly under the covers.

He does not stir as you settle in beside him. You lay your head on the pillow next to his and fold your hands over your stomach.

Outside and far away, you think you can hear the band still merrily playing. The darkness deepens, and deepens, until you can’t tell where it ends and you begin.