Part 4

The mantle clock had just struck eight so Asia knew it was Adam at the door—he was always punctual if he could help it. She looked up at him as he smiled down at her and then bent to kiss her. She raised her hand and touched his cheek. He took her hand in his and kissed her curled fingers.

"You look beautiful," he said, "almost too beautiful to grace us mere mortals. Get your gossamer wings and let's leave." Adam was always so proud to be seen with Asia Clavell as she turned heads no matter where she went. But she seemed to be unaware of it unless there was a man around wanting her attention and then, it was as if she struggled not to be noticed. And tonight she was dressed in a dark green dress that complemented her pale skin and dark hair.

"Adam…" Asia stepped back into the house and turned her back to him.

"What is it?" He came up behind her and placed his hands on her partially bare shoulders, bending down to kiss her bare neck,

She pulled away. "I have a terrible headache. I tried to lie down and get rid of it but my head's just throbbing. Would you mind so much if I didn't go tonight."

His face reflected his suspicions—she didn't want to go tonight but he doubted it was a headache. Nevertheless, she did look distressed and she even seemed to be shaking. "All right, we'll stay here. Come." He put his arm around her and began to walk her into the parlor. "Do you have any laudanum? I'll wait with you until you sleep. I'll massage your feet; how's that? Let's go upstairs and put you to bed but it is a shame to take off that dress. You do look mighty pretty tonight."

"Adam," Asia placed her hand on his chest, twisting out of his embrace. "It's your birthday dinner, you need to be there when your guests arrive. I'll be fine."

Adam knew Asia well enough to know she was lying. "What's really wrong?' Adam asked. "It's more than a headache, isn't it, that is if you really have one? I know you don't like being with my family or friends and I don't understand why not. They're good people and they've never said anything unkind about you. "

"Well, they wouldn't to you, now, would they? You seem to jump to my defense all the time, even if no insult is intended. I always feel like such a fool and I have nothing to say to them…oh, never mind. The night air will probably make me feel better. It was so warm today—warmer than usual and I just think maybe the heat...Let me get my wrap; I'll go."

"If you don't feel well then don't. I'll sit with you for a while. They'll wait."

"No. I'll go." She reached for her shawl and Adam lovingly placed it around her shoulders. He knew that she was keeping something from him. She may have a headache but there was more and Adam began to worry. His fear was that she would cut him off, tell him that she no longer cared to see him—that there was someone else. She was so young and lovely that it could even be one of the Miller sons who had won her heart.

They basically rode in silence. Asia wondered if Dyer had been lurking about her house, watching them leave and if he was following them. She had glanced behind them a few times and Adam asked her what was wrong. She only said that she had thought she heard a horse. And the longer they sat in quiet, the more Asia worried. Many times in the past three years, Asia had almost told Adam about herself, what she had done for a living in Baltimore, how she had met her husband, but each time the words started to form deep in her throat, she stopped herself. But she decided that later tonight, after the party, then she would tell him. So Asia sat stiffly on the seat and Adam kept glancing at her profile, considering how lovely she was but wondering why she was so quiet and anxious. Her behavior upset him.

It was completely dark by the time they arrived at the Ponderosa. There were Chinese lanterns strung along the porch and a few carriages were parked in the yard. Asia knew that they were those of Adam's closest friends and their wives. She recognized Roy Coffee's horse from all the times she had seen it in town but there were a few other horses tied onto the hitching rail as well. These were the only guests Adam had wanted, other than her and his brothers and any young women they chose to invite.

Actually, Adam hadn't wanted any guests at all, didn't like to celebrate his birthday, and Hoss suspected that Adam would try to drag out the cattle drive so that they wouldn't arrive back home until after Adam's birthday but instead, he pushed them. They had finally, after the three day deluge they had ridden through, slept through, eaten in and shit in, stopped in a small town three days distance from home; the weather had been so wet and miserable that the trail hands needed time to dry out as well as the horses and Hoss complained that his fingers and palms were so wet that they stayed wrinkled. Adam had told him that it must give an intriguing new sensation when he "took himself in hand" to satisfy his needs; like doing an old, wrinkled woman. Hoss told him that he was funny and said that the first thing he was going to do once he washed and dried out was to go find the best whorehouse in town and spend the whole time wallowing in dry sheets with" a big ol' whore," so before Hoss left the hotel room that he and Adam shared, he asked Adam if he was interested in coming along. Adam said no, he wasn't; the only thing he was interested in was pushing on.

"Adam, don't tell me that you gotta remain faithful to Asia Clavell?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You think everybody's stupid, don't you. Stupid and blind. Hell, Adam, ain't a person in Virginia City don't know that she spreads her legs for you." Hoss waited to see if Adam's fist was going to shoot out and catch him on the jaw but Adam said nothing, just moved away toward the bed.

"Go find your whore." Adam said as he lay on the bed, his arms crossed behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankles.

"I don't know 'bout you, Adam," Hoss had said standing at the door, his almost dry hat in his hand. "I can't figure why you won't just marry her. Hell, you act as if you already are, you may as well be. It's been 'bout three years since Clavell, well, since Sam died, so ain't it 'bout time?" Hoss waited but Adam said nothing more. "I guess we'll be back home soon enough for you to oil your pole in her but I can't see that a quick one in a whorehouse is gonna do any harm and it'll make you more amiable 'cause you sure as hell ain't been easy to live with." And then Hoss left.

And when he was alone, Adam closed his eyes and thought of the woman who had enchanted him. Once he had half-seriously accused her of being a sorceress and asked if she used his seed in a magic spell to make him bound to her forever. For to Adam, that was how it seemed; it was as if she controlled him with every glance and touch of her hand on him. Just her scent was intoxicating. Often he would bury his face in her hair and breathe in her scent and he almost became lightheaded with desire. And when he kissed her, the sweetness of her mouth intrigued him and the subtle yielding of her lips matched the subtle yielding of her body; she allowed him to possess her but Adam knew that if she chose to be cruel, he would be on his knees begging for her favors. The only reason he hadn't dropped to his knees, his head bowed in subservience at least a hundred times before was due only to her mercy.

Adam thought about Asia, of her full mouth and her white, soft neck. He remembered how she would wrap her arms about him and pull him to her. "I miss you, Asia!" he said to the air. And he considered saddling up and leaving the others behind so that he could ride all day and night to get to her, to tear at her in his passion to have her, to feel her bare flesh under him and hear her moans and cries as he roughly took her. That was what he wanted—no soft, tender love-making, but an almost violent ravishing of her milky flesh. That was what he wanted but he never would—he knew that. But he did want her in the perverse way that a man wants to completely possess a woman and have her do anything he desired, anything to please him, no matter how humiliating to her. And deep down, he knew that Asia would do so had he commanded it—but he held himself back from demands of that type; he was afraid of what would be released from the dark part of his soul.