14.
~ Ariadne was giddy and restless. Her body flushed hot and happy with a strange current she wasn't used to, but enjoyed never the less. She felt just as wonderful and excited as when she was little and Christmas morning was quickly approaching.
She couldn't be expected to stay in bed for the rest of the day. She was fully awake now and her legs itched to run and jump around the room.
If only Arthur hadn't stolen her clothes.
She thought about her husband as she nibbled the rich chocolates he had delivered to her and felt a warm beam and happiness warm her. She wanted to giggle at the idea of them together. Hide her face behind the blankets again at the memory she had touched his body and he hers.
She didn't want to read her boring novel either. Books that were approved for proper ladies were so dull. They were all about single women when wanted to find a husband. To find true love and how they have to overcome all manner of terrible things to be worthy of some hapless prince or a handsome, brooding gentleman who was conveniently rich.
She had grown up reading these books. Thinking, as silly young girls always do, that these stories were a sort of promise. A road map to a life she would have if she was charming and pretty.
But those books had all deceived her. Although she had attend many parities where she met nice young men, she couldn't seem to take the task seriously. She found the youths of her generation stupid and rude at times. The young men keeping to their own and the girls in gaggle like groups that rarely crossed boarders. If such an occurrence did happen, and a young man talked to a lady, naturally the gossip went the rounds of soon to be weddings.
Ariadne was too shy of a girl to stand that kind of gossip and speculation. So, she rarely made any effort to met the gentleman her parents wanted for her.
This attitude frustrated her father to no end, and he finally brought Arthur into her life as an effort to force her to marry.
By this time Ariadne had started to go to her ladies club meeting and was given the idea that she didn't have to marry or be a mother if she didn't want to be. That she was grown and not a child any longer. She even began having ideas of teaching school and moving out of her parents home. A perfectly scandalous thing, but one she thought about till that fateful dinner.
She had never known Arthur had admired her that first evening. He had seemed so cold and distant. Speaking only to her father, as was only proper.
She wondered about her husband now. Wondered why he had married her. Was it because he cared for her, as he had said? He had always treated her well. With the exception of the past few days, she hadn't a complaint about him.
Was it because he really loved her?
She looked over the pages of her boring book and let out a long, frustrated sigh.
She didn't want to stay in bed, and decided, in the same rush of defiance that made her cut off her hair, she wouldn't.
Once Ariadne got it into her head to do something, it couldn't be done fast enough. She climbed out of bed, the sheets wound tightly to her body as she looked over Arthur's neatly pressed and ready clothing.
Her husband had no casual clothing she could just throw on. He had no tolerance for threadbare shirt that Mrs. Marsh might repair for him either. His clothing was always perfect, well pressed and fitted his slim body nicely.
She ran her hands over the corse fabric of one of his winter suits and the faint hint of his aftershave caught her nose.
She felt that wonderful ripple go through her as she breathed in the smell that clung to the fabric of his suit.
She never realized till now how much she loved the way he smelled. How clean the scent was and how his face was always freshly shaven despite the fashion for mustaches.
She let the sheet drop to the floor and pulled on his neatly starched and pressed dress shirt off the hangers.
She never gave Arthur credit for being so tall till she tried to put on his shirt. His arms were longer than she imagined to. She looked like a child, playing dress up in his shirt as she buttoned up the rich fabric that tickled her delicate skin.
She rolled up the sleeves and looked at herself in the mirror. The hem of Arthur's shirt thankfully covering her bottom where red marks from her spanking were still clear. They had taken a deep, red hue now. Like burn marks that would go away in a few days.
Her body was still sore from last night, but her bottom was going to be a problem if she tried to sit down.
She smoothed down the fabric of his shirt, the way he was so fond of doing, and left the bedroom.
She couldn't have very well have traipsed around the upstarts in nothing but a smile. Even if Mrs. Marsh was out for the day.
She was too modest, too well brought up to even look at her own naked body in the mirror, let alone display it outside the safety of a bedroom.
She knew exactly where to find her husband. His favorite place in the house was in the sitting room. The green leather arm chair by the fire was big and comfortable and he loved to read the paper and look out the window to see delivery people come and go.
It was all he really did on Sunday and there he sat, his long, lean form draped carelessly in his chair.
A cup of black coffee sitting on the side table as he scowled over the business section.
She leaned over the banisher and watched him for a while. Enjoying the sport of spying on him without his knowing.
He always seemed grumpy when he read his paper and never commented on the stocks and trades he was in. Heaven forbid he should discuss with her about money. Talks about money was not the thing to worry ladies about. He gave her an allowance for everyday things. She gave Mrs. Marsh enough ready cash to buy food. The rest, she could use to buy what she needed or wanted.
It was a better arrangement than she had with her father. When she asked him for money for anything, he would look at her with distaste and asked why she needed it, and was she sure she needed it. Or worse yet, he would think about it. Arthur, was drastically different. He didn't question at all why she needed a few dollars in her pocket book. Or why she bought a new book when she had books already. He didn't question why she bought new stockings either.
She appreciated that aspect of her marriage and knew that lately, she hadn't lived up to her end of the bargain by giving him a nice home life to come back to.
"I escaped." she said teasingly from her perch on the stairs.
Arthur looked up from his paper in surprise. His face comically boyish as he looked over her slight body, almost drowning, in his dress shirt.
"I see." he said as he took his mug of coffee and sipped it carefully. "Raiding my closet as well. How very industrious of you."
She smiled as she tip toed lightly to him. It felt wrong to be downstairs in nothing but his dress shirt. She hand no protective under garments on, the floor was cold on her bare feet and she longed to be near the fire.
"I thought I told you to stay in bed." he said as, cat like, she pushed his newspaper aside and curled up on his lap.
Arthur shifted and allowed her body to fit itself comfortably on him. He sat down the paper as she cuddled closer to him. Her head resting on his shoulder, her legs dangling off the side.
"I'm awake." she explained. "And I don't like being told what to do."
"I'm coming to realize that." he said with a chuckle.
"Are you happy?" she asked him. She suddenly wanted to know if he regretted marrying her. If he had known what a handful she would be. How she wasn't a good wife at all but a burden to him, would he still have married her.
"Right now?" he asked as his hands roamed up her arms in a motion to warm her body up from the cold outside.
"I mean, are you glad you married me?" she asked.
He let out a sigh.
"I suppose." he admitted.
She sat up and looked at him.
"What do you mean, you suppose?" she asked. He didn't love her. He hated being her husband and now he was trapped in wedlock with her.
"Ariadne, you have to admit, you're very difficult sometimes." he said carefully.
"Difficult?" she breathed. Her heart thumping in her chest. "In what way?"
Her tone was a challenge. One in which she expected him to bow gracefully away from.
"In every way." he said. "I expected a lady who would want to be a wife and mother. Instead, I have beautiful woman who insists on embarrassing herself and me by getting arrested and making me the laughing stock of my peers."
She leaned away from him. His hands steadying her body so she wouldn't fall off his lap.
"They laugh at you?" she asked.
Arthur nodded but tried to look indifferent.
"It's not easy to be respected when your wife is known to be apart of the suffrage movement." he explained.
"I'm sorry." she whispered. "I didn't realize..." she stammered and felt foolish.
"Ariadne." he sighed and shifted her body weight to be closer to him again. "I don't want you to go to those meeting anymore. I want you focus on our life here at home. On a family of our own someday soon."
She tensed at the talk of a family and tried not to show it.
"Arthur, I go to those meetings because it's important to me. You can't ask me to change who I am." she said. It felt like she was drowning again. That she was losing herself in this monochromatic blob of wife, daughter and mother. If she fell any deeper into the waters of that life, she would be totally lost. Everything that made her unique would be gone and she would become the thing she hated.
"Who you are," Arthur said as if reading her mind, "is my wife."
"It's not all I am." she said in a whisper.
He seemed to have no response to that as she bit her lower lip to keep from crying.
"It's alright." he was saying as the tears dropped out of her eyes against her will. He seemed to have pity on her and didn't want to see her upset.
She let out a sob as he pulled her to his chest. As though she were a small child who needed comfort.
"Last night." he whispered. "Was the first time you ever said you loved me. I think we need to hold onto that. Start over from there."
He was kissing the top of her head. The same way he had done just after they were married and she was so shy at being around him.
She tensed suddenly as his fingers started to play with her short hair.
When had she told him she loved him? Her mind raced back over last night. Of the fever she had and the way he touched her. Of their bodies rocking back and forth together like two ships at sea.
She felt slightly dizzy at the idea she had told him that. Her husband, still such a stranger to her.
"No more meetings, Mrs. Brandon. No more of these radical ideas. We're going to be happy." he was saying as she felt raw, naked panic take over.