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And Rick had proven himself so patient, too, waiting for ‘real’ physical intimacy, as the world understood it. Really I felt like, for me, real intimacy was what happened when we cuddled on a couch, rather than what had happened the few times Rick had convinced me to lie down with him in his bedroom.
Let alone what had happened on our wedding night and then—so far—not again on our honeymoon.
Me, under the covers, dutifully spreading my legs the way the little book my mom had given me had instructed. The strange feeling of not having panties on under my pretty white cotton nightgown, because the book said that a wife should leave them off on nights when she expected her husband to want ‘to be intimate with her.’
Rick, coming out of the bathroom naked, to my shock. My bridegroom, silhouetted against the light flooding from the doorway—and a moment, just a moment, when he turned a little and I saw something long and rigid jutting from his lap. Me, turning away, my cheeks burning hot, saying in as calm a voice as I could manage, “Could you turn the bathroom light off, babe?”
A pause, though Rick stood right there next to the light switch. I had bitten my lip, wondering suddenly whether he might say no—and wondering even more intensely what I would do, if he did refuse to turn off the light… if my husband told me that he wanted to see his bride naked… that far from turning off the bathroom light, he would turn on more lights in the hotel room… would take the covers away and make me raise my nightgown so he could see all the private places that belonged to him as of today, and henceforth forever.
To have. To hold.
My mind had whispered, my insides fluttering,To fuck.
One of the bad words. The words a good girl like me knows, but may never say.
The light, switching off with a click. A sigh of relief, let out through my nose, and a mixture with that relief of another emotion I refused to name, or yield to.
Rick, climbing into bed. Embracing me awkwardly from the side. Me, keeping my legs spread because I knew I had to. I loved my new husband… would love him forever. I would get used to intimacy because I knew—and the little book made crystal clear—he had a right to expect it. He would claim that right frequently, during the first years of our marriage, but then less and less, it seemed.
His hardness against my thigh as he hugged me. A thrill of shame at the feeling—the knowledge that my husband’s muscular body lay unclothed next to me in the bed… that his… my mind whispered this word, too… that his nakedpenishad just touched me.
Him rubbing it there a little. A little sound in my throat that I couldn’t help… alarm and, though it hurt to remember it… disgust.
Rick freezing, as if at the sound. A moment’s silence, my heart thudding hard in my chest.
“Ready, Dee?” he had asked softly, his voice warm but to my distress a little uncertain. Dee: his pet name for me, the second syllable of Mandy. My brain, fixating there as a way to avoid thinking about what had to happen now.
“Yes,” I had murmured. Then, “I love you.” As if to apologize before the fact for what I felt absolutely certain would disappoint him.
Rick, kissing me gently. His hand on my cheek to turn my face toward him, and another strange little thrill at the feeling of him directing me in that small way, guiding my lips toward his. For a moment, the thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult. His hand down between my legs, stroking gently, the way I had let him do inside my panties once or twice during our courtship.
I had known from the little book, though, what it meant: Rick meant to get me ready, there, for himself. For his… thing. To possess me with its frightening rigidity, and to claim me that way as his bride.
“Don’t… please,” I had whispered, breaking the kiss. “I’m… I’m ready.” Ready to get it over with.
He had climbed on top of me and raised my nightgown to my waist. A hot blush, over my whole body even though we lay under the covers in the dark. I had closed my eyes and gritted my teeth to keep from crying out with the pain while my bridegroom deflowered me, rising high over me on his strong arms and thrusting hard into my no longer virginal vagina. I had pictured him looking down at me in the dark, not seeing the tears that leaked from the corners of my eyes and down my cheeks.
CHAPTER2
Mandy
I hadn’t let him do it again. I had told him, when he had asked, gently, in the morning, if I felt ready to be intimate again, that I was a little sore.
“Can you wait, babe?” I had asked, looking into his dark eyes and loving him despite feeling like I couldn’t tell him the truth.
“Sure,” Rick had said. “You want to go for a hike?”
The cuddling, in the woods and at the dinner table, still felt nice but also didn’t seem to be the same as before. Rick’s hands went to places they hadn’t, or at least not very often, when we were courting. At dinner, as I shamefacedly realized April must have seen, I had out of desperation to please him, let him put his hand up under my skirt and touch my panties.
Looking at Scott and replaying his words in my head, about Rick not letting me get away with pulling apart from him, that moment at the dinner table came so vividly back into my memory that I wanted to hide my face in my hands. With half a glass of wine warming my petite body, I hadn’t pushed my husband’s hand away. I had, I remembered with a new surge of heat up the back of my neck, felt as if I might push my hips toward his moving hand, rather than pull them away as I should have.
But these people couldn’t have seen that, I realized suddenly; it had all happened under the tablecloth, hadn’t it? I tried to calm myself; they hadn’t seen Rick’s hand—they had only seen him kissing me there at the dinner table, while he took a husband’s liberties with his bride’s body.
I turned to look at the mountains. Only a sliver of red sun remained above the ridge. I tried to sort out all the confused thoughts and feelings this strange conversation had called up.
It’s just… it’s just words,I told myself.Just the kind of thing older couples say to younger ones. Everyone knows what happens on a honeymoon… everyone teases a bride about it.
Because everyone knows that even if she was a virgin bride like me, her husband’s tender touch has started to awaken her… he’s made a woman of her at last, and on their honeymoon, he’ll teach her more, get her used to intimacy with him… to his touch, wherever he wishes to put his hands.
