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“No, but no one says that it ought to.”

“It was not terribly uncomfortable,” she said, coming up on her elbows and peering down her body.

He followed her eyes. She had the most curvy, creamy body that he could have imagined.

“No blood,” she said relievedly, flopping back down again. “A few bruises on my hips. So what did you think?”

Simeon had never been very good at explaining things. How could he explain a rush of pleasure so acute that it felt as if his skin were alive, as if he knew her body as well as his own, as if he was seeing the world in color after being blind?

“I liked it,” Isidore continued.

That was good. Simeon lay back because if he didn’t stop looking at her, he would leap on top of her again. His rod stirred at the thought.

“It’s not something I would want to do every day,” she continued, “but from what I hear, people don’t do it all that often anyway.”

Simeon turned his head.

She was looking at him, rather shyly. “Do you mind that we consummated our marriage, Simeon?”

It didn’t sound as if Isidore had fallen out of herself while making love to him. In fact, now he thought about it…

Not that he knew much about women’s bodies. He’d always avoided salacious campfire talk. She didn’t experience great pleasure.

That was entirely unacceptable.

Likely she wouldn’t wish to try making love again for a time. That too was unacceptable. He made a plan and implemented it, all in one second.

“We weren’t very good,” he said, propping himself up on an elbow, ignoring her question.

She blinked. “We weren’t?”

“No.”

“I thought—”

“We need to work on it. You shouldn’t like to be a failure, would you?”

She didn’t respond as impulsively as he hoped. “I don’t think I was a failure,” she said. “Nor you either. What were you expecting?”

“More,” he said, though he wasn’t actually sure there could be anything more than what he’d experienced. “It’s because we’re beginners,” he added hastily.

“I suppose that could be true,” Isidore said. “What do you think we did wrong? How did it feel for you?”

“Short,” he said, realizing that was true. “Surely it should take longer than a few minutes.”

“I don’t know,” Isidore said. “You’re—you’re—” She waved her hand.

“One of the things that’s odd is that we were so intimate,” Simeon said, realizing he really meant it. “We joined our bodies together, and yet I don’t truly understand your body.”

“How could you understand it?”

“Well,” he said, reaching out delicately, “how does it feel to have breasts?”

She started laughing, a delicious low gust of laughter. “How does it feel? Simeon, do you think that you’re a normal man?”

“It seems like a logical question to me. I don’t have anything of that nature standing out from my chest. Are you aware of them all the time? Do you know they’re there?”

“Do you know that your knees are there all the time?”