Girl Talk

"My mother told me that it's going to hurt-does it?"

"Well, she told me the same thing when I was marrying Seamus; it's probably what her mother told her. Mothers don't want you to fall on your back too soon. But it didn't hurt; I was just sore for a few days. I suppose it's the same as when you get a new pair of boots; you get blisters where the skin hasn't been rubbed before." The two women laughed. "But I always wondered what it would have been like if Adam had been my first husband, if he had been the first one to take me. I don't think that I would have been able to walk for a few days. As a matter of fact, now that I remember, I was sore afterwards and every time I sat down, I would blush knowing what had caused it." They giggled again.

Caroline was getting married and her beloved cousin, her cousin who had been raised as her older sister, was here from Nevada to help her. The wedding was tomorrow and Caroline desperately needed to know what to expect. She had heard so many stories about what one's husband would do, how women bled after the first time and some women actually fainted from the excruciating pain as her husband performed congress for the first time. That was what they called it, congress. It made it seem less sexual. But her cousin, who had been once a widow and had married again, was comforting-and they had been laughing and talking. And although Caroline's cousin had been loath at first to talk of her husband, "Adam wouldn't like my talking about him; he's just that way," she did, for her cousin's sake.

Her eyes took on a far-away look as she thought of her husband, Adam, on practically the other side of the country. He had wanted to accompany her back east for her cousin's wedding but the timing was bad-it was time to mark the trees for cutting and to supervise the mill and the delivery of the logs to San Francisco. She also had convinced him that he would be bored, which was true; she would spend the days trousseau shopping with her aunt and cousin, going to the teas and luncheon's in her cousin's honor, and in general preparation for the wedding. He would have nothing to do during the day at all. Adam had responded that what she said may be true, but that he would certainly have enough to keep himself busy at night. And he had run his hands over her and kissed her and she knew how much she would miss their nights cocooned together in their bed.

But she also knew Adam; he would become testy and sardonic having to spend the days idly for the two months of the trip. She knew they would argue and he would want to leave early and take her with him. So she had felt that it was best to go alone. She knew how she would ache at night for him, how her body would scream for his touch and for his urgent thrusting as he took her body, but she had weighed both sides and then decided to suggest he stay behind.

But she found, surprisingly, that what she missed the most now that she was gone, was his voice, that this was what brought tears to her eyes at night as she lay alone in the same bed that she had slept in as a child in her aunt's and uncle's house, the bed where she had fantasized about a dark, mysterious man who would win her heart and take her body.

She missed the sound of his voice in her ear, how he would whisper that he loved her, adored her and her body, its smells and tastes and the smoothness of her skin and roundness of her breasts. And then she would turn in her bed and thinking of him, touch herself and imagine it was him. Her finger was an inferior substitute for him; she couldn't fill herself the way he did, but she would find the pleasure and release she sought when she would think of him as she rubbed herself. And she would wonder how he was satisfying himself-or if he was finding satisfaction with another woman.

And then she would sit up, a panic pulsing through her. What if he fell in love with someone else? What if, when she returned, he didn't want her anymore? And she would pull out the note he had slipped in her valise and read it again:

My most beloved wife,

I regret not going with you-I would gladly have given up the work here to lie with you every night no matter how dull the days-but I assure you that upon your return, I will make it seem as if you had never left-all those lost nights shall be recompensed in one.

Strangely, I find I long for you already and you have yet to leave my side. Please know that I will yearn for you to return to my arms and to my bed. Be ready to taste my desire.

I thought that the longing for you would end once we were married, but it's like a riddle-what do I want all the more, the more I have it?-and the answer is you. I can never have enough of you.

Please return to me soon. Sooner.

My love and devotion always,

Adam

And then, after reading his note, she would sleep again.

"Are all men alike?" Caroline asked, bringing her cousin out of her reverie.

"No, no they're not." She thought back to her first husband. "Seamus was kind and gentle and being with him was pleasant. To be held in his arms was nice. But maybe it's because he was…well, there was desire but things were over so quickly. He would raise my nightgown up to my thighs, raise his night shirt and basically, I would open my legs and he would thrust a few times, groan and then kiss me. I would go wash and when I came back to bed, he was usually asleep. I thought that was the way it was supposed to be."

"It's not?' Caroline asked.

"Well, it doesn't have to be." She was wondering just how much she should tell her cousin. Had Adam come with her, she was sure that Caroline would know what men and women did just by hearing the cries and moans of pleasure that would emanate from their room. She felt herself become moist thinking about how Adam could bring her to such heights of joy-a joy she had never believed possible when she read about it in bad erotic novels where the heroine practically fainted under the men who "impaled" her on their male members.

"Well, what's it like with Adam?" Caroline wanted to know. Her cousin's husband was a mystery to her and what was even more of a mystery, her cousin seemed happy to be married to him, happy to perform her wifely duties-even eager. That was rare among Caroline's friends who were now married. They discussed doing their "duty" and talked about possibly slipping saltpeter into their husbands' food to cut down on their "lust." The women had complained about the messiness and humiliation of the act, how they couldn't clean themselves fast enough afterwards. Men were animals and their privates were ridiculous to see-if you were so unfortunate as to accidentally open your eyes at the wrong time.

"Well, I don't know exactly what you mean, what it's like with Adam." Caroline's question could mean anything and she didn't know how to answer.

"I mean, what does he do when you two are, you know, being together? You seem to like what he does, at least from what you've said." Caroline looked at her cousin expectantly. It wasn't so much prurient interest, although that was part of it, but she wanted to know what to expect. She and her fiancé had touched each other through their clothing but that was as far as they gone and she remembered how disturbed she had felt afterwards, how she couldn't settle down to sleep. She wondered if Adam touched her cousin without her clothes on.

"Oh, I suppose I might as well tell you," she said and they laughed and fell backwards on the mattress. "Well, I adore him which is part of it, but he has a way with me. Somehow he knows exactly what to do to make me practically beg for him. He touches me in certain places and says things to me that make me want him inside me."

"Where does he touch you?"

"Between my legs. He uses his fingers…and well…slides them…in places." She was looking at the ceiling, remembering the subtle movements of his hands and how he would tease her with his fingers while he talked to her about his desire and she felt herself wishing Adam were there. She would throw him on the bed and ride him until they both groaned in mutual pleasure. She ached for him.

"You mean he puts his finger up there?" Caroline was shocked. She couldn't believe that people did that, that they actually would touch each other in those places.

"Oh, yes. Oh, Caroline, he's so wonderful. I let Adam do whatever he wants with me. He puts his mouth there too, between my legs." Now she was shocking her cousin on purpose. Caroline wanted to know and so she would tell her.

"Does he kiss you there?"

"No, it's more like he teases me with his tongue. You know, slides his tongue around and licks me. That sort of thing." She suddenly realized how it must sound. She didn't want her cousin to think bad of Adam.

"And you like it?" Caroline looked at her, her eyes wide with shock.

"Not only do I like it, I love it. And, you'll probably think that I am the most brazen hussy in the world," she said, sitting up," but I take him in my mouth too and use my lips to excite him even more."

Caroline sat up too. Her cousin was almost ten years older than she and married twice, but this was still shocking to Caroline. The picture of her cousin with her legs up in the air and a man's face between her legs licking her was bad enough, but to picture her beautiful cousin, the one who always had men admiring her and wanting to court her when she lived there, with a man's…Caroline didn't even want to think of the word…with a man's memeber in her lovely mouth was appalling!

"And you like doing that?"

"At first, I wasn't sure, but the more I did it and saw how it pleasured him, the more I liked it. Besides, there's something about making a man squirm and groan just because you've taken him in your mouth, well, it makes you feel powerful somehow. All you have to do is tickle his, you know, those sacs, with your fingers or press in certain places and he's at your mercy. It's wonderful!"

Caroline watched her cousin's eyes glow and suddenly was struck by envy. What if she didn't receive the same pleasure from her husband that Caroline did from hers? Now that she knew these things, she was afraid that if she didn't experience them as well, she might be unhappy.

"Let me ask you something, if you don't mind?"

"Well, you've asked me just about everything else. Go ahead." She sat waiting to see what it was that her cousin wanted to know but hadn't yet asked.

"Did you and Adam have congress before you were married?"

"Well, I wasn't a young virgin like you, so things were different." She looked down at her hands and then met Caroline's eyes." But yes, he would come over to my ranch whenever he could and we would spend hours together, just enjoying each other." She didn't want to tell her cousin that from the moment she and Adam laid eyes on each other, she wanted him, had never felt that way about any man but that he actually caused a hunger inside her. Nor did she want to tell Caroline about the way she and Adam would cling naked to each other in desperation every moment they could find, or how many times he had begged her to marry him and there had been tears from her and angry words from him when she told him, no.

Nor did she want to tell her cousin that sometimes she would cry out in a sort of pleasurable pain after he had taken her repeatedly during the evening and brought her to the point where she lost herself completely to him in an orgy of entwined bodies and bruised mouths from their kissing and sucking of each other. Caroline didn't need to know how frightening passion could be, how terrifying it was to find oneself losing all control over one's desires and submitting to the will of another-and being enthralled by the man who was the center of your existence. She felt that Caroline couldn't understand and that it would just frighten her. And besides, those things seemed more intimate that the details of her and Adam's physical joining.

"And you didn't think that it was wrong to have done that before marriage?" Caroline asked.

"I didn't think of anything but Adam. Nothing and no one but him. When I wasn't with him, I wasn't existing. And," she added, "if your wedding wasn't tomorrow, I'd leave and run back to him tonight." Suddenly she felt such an agony of grief that she and Adam were apart that she started to cry.

Caroline put her arms around her. "Don't cry. I'm sorry if I made you cry." She patted her cousin on the shoulder; she should have been quiet, she told herself, and not asked such things and she felt guilty for her cousin's tears.

"No. don't feel bad. I'm glad that you did. I'm glad you asked. It brought Adam here with me for a few moments and I realize I miss him so much more than I had thought. Oh, Caroline," she cried out. "I miss him so much-I need to see him, to hear his voice."

Caroline tried to understand her cousin's pain but she couldn't quite do so. She knew that she enjoyed being with her fiancé, loved the time they spent together but couldn't understand the intense longing her cousin felt for her husband.

"I'm going to leave here earlier than I had planned-I want to get back to him." She looked at her cousin, wiping away tears.

Caroline smiled at her, at the woman who loved her husband so much and again was filled with envy. She could only wish and pray that she would love her husband—and desire him-even half as much. Caroline considered that she would be fortunate indeed if it ended up being so.

~Fini~