Anne of Loose Morals

"And now, my dear Carrots, let's see if the carpet really does match the drapes." With a squeal, Anne allowed Gilbert to push her onto the bed and burrow his head under her wedding gown.

Then silence.

"Gilbert…?"

He seemed to be inspecting her genitalia.

"Gilbert, don't be alarmed. All women look like that."

"Nonsense! You have the distended labia and gaping meatus of a débauchée—or the common whores on whom we practiced the art of medical examination! Am I expected to simply hold my nose and…lower myself into this fetid maw?"

Anne sat up, drawing in her legs. "I'm obviously not as tight as that Christine Stuart woman!" she spat back.

"Don't try to make this about me." Gilbert sighed. "How foolish of me to suppose your maidenhead could have survived a two-year engagement to that notorious rake, Royal Gardner."

"It wasn't like that!" Anne protested. "We met during our junior year at Redmond. It was raining. Roy offered me his umbrella. He was so dark and handsome, and the scene so romantic…"

"Stop it! I'm going to be sick."

"He took me by force, right there in the pavilion! I swooned when he slid his hand under my petticoat, and tried to resist, but my body refused to obey me. Oh Gilbert, if only it had been you instead…"

"You stayed with him for two years, Anne…!"

"I was a ruined woman! Who else would have me? But Roy came from a good family, and he needed me to keep quiet until our graduation. He had been expelled once before, you see…"

Gilbert fumed. "And you kept this a secret from me throughout the three years of our engagement!"

"You had typhoid," Anne explained. "They told me not to upset you."

"All these years of being a perfect gentleman...what a fool I was! I could have had you anytime. Any man could have had you!" Then a thought occurred to him. "There were other men, weren't there, Anne?"

Anne was crying now. "It's complicated." She tried to pray, but the only prayers she had ever learned were Marilla's blasphemous ecstasies.

"After our graduation, Roy…threatened to tell you about our trysts," she began. "Unless…"

"Unless what, Anne?"

"Unless I did whatever he wanted. Sometimes with him, sometimes with another man. Once they made me dance atop a table, exposing my shame to the whole riotous assembly."

"A far cry from the Philomathic, I should say!"

"You have to understand—ever since I was a little girl, all I knew was predation. First the orphanage, then a succession of foster homes…a few childhood friends, whom I plied with alcohol… Then after Matthew died, and we thought we were going to lose the farm… Do you know what a donkey show is, Gilbert?"

But Gilbert was already starting to heave.