She backed away only far enough to search his eyes. “What’s wrong, Teddy? All day long you’ve been acting as if you’re scared to death of me.”
“I am.” He chuckled ruefully — a forced, pained sound in the lamplit room, then he scraped the hair back from her temples and held her head in two broad palms. “You’re so young. It keeps coming back to me, no matter how I try to put it from my mind.”
“I’m not. I’m a woman, and I’m ready for this. You have a fixation with time — clocks, years. What do they matter when there’s love? Please... please... ” She dropped a nosegay of quick kisses on his chin, his cheek, his mouth. “Please... count the love, not the years. I’m your wife now. Don’t make me wonder any longer.”
One quick, unresolved kiss, then he drew back to search her dress for closures. Without a word she presented her back, lifting her hair aside while he released buttons to her spine. Inside she wore a sleeveless white cotton garment that disappeared into her petticoats. He watched, fascinated, as she unbuttoned the waistband of those petticoats, then shimmied the dress down her arms and let both drop over her slim hips.
When she turned to face him he saw her undergarment fully. It covered her from shoulder to mid-thigh, where it was banded with elastic on both legs. The waist was secured by a thin white cord tied in front. The scoop-necked bodice held another row of buttons — closed — revealing little more than the shadows at her collarbones.
His ma wore undershirts and snuggies, and in winter, long underwear. He’d never seen anything like the white bit his wife had on. Filmy stockings disappeared inside the pantaloonlike legs, and her calves were slender and shapely as she stood before him in the gleaming satin shoes that arched her foot daintily.
When his eyes rose from them to her face, both Theodore and Linnea were flushed and breathless.
A self-conscious smile winged past her lips and disappeared. His vest took a sudden ride down his arms and landed on the floor behind him, revealing crisp black suspenders that dented the shoulders of his starched shirt. He hooked them with his thumbs and sent them drooping, then yanked his shirttails out of his trousers and reached for her hand, holding it loosely while his eyes wandered to her breasts and he unconsciously freed his last few shirt buttons.
It was a glorious sight, watching him undress. Watching the play of shrugging shoulder muscles, and suspenders falling, and a sea of wrinkles appearing on a shirt bottom, and wrists twisting while cuffs were freed.
Then the shirt lay on the floor and Linnea couldn’t withhold an exclamation of appreciation.
“Oh, Theodore... ” she breathed on a falling note. “Look at youuu... ” Impulsively she reached out four fingertips and tested the dark hair that branched across his warm chest, then followed it halfway down his belly before realizing where she was heading. Quickly she retracted the curious hand and clasped it with the other. Her wide eyes flashed up. He captured her hand and placed it on the spot it had abandoned.
It played over him, tantalized.
How hard, how silky, how masculine. How wondrously different from herself he was. While she explored the hollow of his throat, the backs of his knuckles stroked her collarbone, then brushed down her front buttons.
She forgot how to breathe.
His hand moved back up and gently cupped a breast.
Her eyes dropped closed and she stood shadow still, steeped in sensation. Goose bumps climbed her arms, her belly, rippled the breast he gently kneaded. It hardened for him and changed shape beneath his palm. His tongue touched her lower lip, traced a wet, circular path, bringing him back to the point of origin, which he bit and sucked into his mouth, massaging it with only the tip of his tongue until she wriggled slightly and shivered. Up stole her hands to his chest, his neck, his hair, fingers spreading wide within it, caressing his skull as she pulled his head down to receive a bride’s kiss.
Her tongue danced lustily within his mouth. Her body strained high, pulsing against him until he took both breasts and felt her driving the handfuls of flesh into his clasp. Around her back he reached, hands skimming down her buttocks, gripping hard to lift her high against him. Rhythm began, a sweet slow lolling that rocked them one against the other.
He set a river flowing in her body, flooding its banks. The sensation was so sudden it took the starch from her knees. As she drooped, their mouths parted with a soft succulent sound, and for a moment he bore her weight with a knee, until, astride, she knew a momentary relief from the pressures building within The knee let her back to the floor, then slipped away.
His hands played over her spine. Their tongues and lips were joined when he first touched bare skin on her backside. His head jerked up in surprise.
“What is this thing?”
Arms looped around his neck, she tilted her head back, somewhat surprised, too. Truly, she thought he’d have known.
“A teddy.”
“A what?” He backed away and looked down, holding her loosely by the waist.
“A teddy. The kind that’s not named after Mr. Roosevelt.”
He chuckled and gave it a second look.
“Mmm... a teddy, huh?” Kissing her again he buried his hand inside an open porthole that seemed to extend from the back of her waist to eternity. He soothed her curved flesh while wondering exactly how far the access extended, moved to explore her stomach, and sure enough, the open placket ran from belly to backside, under her legs.
But as his explorations continued, the construction of her garments ceased to matter. His fingers found their way inside the white cotton welt and flattened over her warm stomach to ride lower, lower, finally touching her intimately. At his entry she jumped once, then relaxed against the strong arm banding her waist. Worlds of wonder opened up in her mind’s eye, worlds no amount of imagination had prepared her for. Colors danced behind her closed lids, from pastoral to passionate. She swayed and rocked against him, flowing into primal rhythm.
His touch went deeper, infusing her with delight in her own flesh.
“Oh, Teddy... Teddy... ” she murmured, awash with desire.
He left her to move toward the lantern, and she called softly, “No!” He paused, turning. “Please... I’ve never... I mean... ” Her cheeks pinkened and she looked down at her hands, then resolutely at him. “I want to see you.”
His heart drummed heavily at her request. He had not thought of women that way — a new lesson for Theodore Westgaard.
Leaving the lantern glowing softly, he drew her to the side of the bed and leaned down to loosen his shoestrings. She followed suit, slipping the satin shoes from her heels and setting them neatly side by side. He reached beneath his trouser legs to peel off his stockings, and again she followed his lead, rolling her elastic garters to her ankles and taking the opaque stockings with them. He stretched to his feet, unbuttoned and doffed his trousers, but her eyes remained downcast as she realized he was standing before her naked.
“Linnea... ”
She raised her eyes in an evasive sweep until they locked with his. The only sound in the room was the tick of the clock and the thunder of their hearts in their ears. He reached out a hand, palm up. She placed hers in it and he drew her to her feet and dispensed with the teddy without further delay.
Before she had time to grow self-conscious he swept her to the bed, dropping beside her in a full-length embrace. With their mouths joined, he rolled her to her back, finding her naked breast first with his hand, then with his tongue, murmuring low in his throat as it pearled up in nature’s reach for more. He laved it, leaving it wet for the stroke of his thumb. He smiled down at it, then rubbed his soft, upturned lips over its ascended tip with infinite gentleness before turning his attention to its twin.
She twisted languorously, murmuring his name, lifting in invitation, threading his hair with her fingers. His wet tongue felt silken and profoundly powerful as he suckled, released, suckled again, drawing sensation from deep in her belly. She cried out, one ecstatic hosanna, as he tugged gently with h
is teeth. She lolled, immersed in pleasure, stretching her arms over her head until her belly went hollow and he stroked it with his hand, then gave it a lingering kiss before crushing her tightly, taking her on a rolling journey across the bed. She landed on top and shinnied down for more of his mouth. Her hair caught between them; he flicked it aside and kissed her almost roughly. She clung, returning stroke for stroke.
After long minutes she lifted her face.
He held the hair back from her temples with both hands, eyes glittering up at her with dark, intense passion. “Linnea, I love you. I used to lay here alone and think of this. So many nights, when you were upstairs, over my head. But you’re better than you were in my wishes.”
I love you...
I love you...
I love you...
Some of the words were his, some hers, indistinguishable one from the other as they sated themselves upon kisses until kisses would no longer suffice.
He rolled her to her back, leaning above her, studying her eyes while their hearts pounded with one accord. A brief kiss on her parted lips, a briefer one on her breast, a hand on her stomach, an intense flame leaping from his gaze to hers while he reached low, low...
He touched her with care, tutored her limbs to widen beneath his caress, her flesh to blossom to his exploration. And when she was lithe and lissome and fervid, he captured her hand and curled it inside his own, then placed it on his distended flesh and taught her some things a woman has to know.
He closed his eyes and groaned softly while his flesh slipped through her hand. His head dropped back, while she wondered at her power to bring such abandon to a man so strong and indomitable. When he trembled and his breathing grew ragged, there awaited that greatest pleasure of all. He hovered above her and his voice came shaken at her ear. “If anything hurts, tell me and I’ll stop. Now easy... easy... ”
His entry was slow, sacred. His elbows trembled near her shoulders while he waited. She drew him deep.
“Lin, ahh, Lin... ” came his utterance as she lifted to impale herself.
Nature had planned nothing in vain; sword to sheath, key to lock — they fit with an arcane exquisiteness. He found her no girl, but all the woman he’d ever want. She taught him a new youth, a boundless thing of the heart rather than the calendar. Lying beneath the sinuous motion of his driving hips she followed his wordless commands and lifted in accommodation. She came to know the touch of his breath moving her hair and warming her neck; he the gentle grip of those strands as they coiled against his damp forehead. Together they discovered a timeless lovers’ language fashioned of murmurs and rustles and sighs. She learned his capacity for gentleness; he her capacity for strength. Together they learned when to reverse roles. He found a joy in making her arch and gasp, she an equal joy in his shuddering call of release. She discovered that twice was possible for a man; he that thrice was not enough for some women.
And the keen, seeping pleasure to be found in the after minutes. Ahh, those weak, wilted stretches of time when their sapped bodies could do no more or no less than tangle together in sated exhaustion.
And years mattered little. All that mattered was that they were man and wife, consummate, that it was their wedding night and through it they gave each other the ultimate recompense for all of life’s tribulations... again... and again... and again...
21
IT WAS A WINTER of great change, that winter of 1918. The changes happened not only within the Westgaard family, but within their newest member, and throughout the world at large. In her blissful, newly married state it would have been easy for Linnea to forget that American doughboys were going to France to make the world safe for democracy and to bask instead in the happiness that glowed within her heart. But the example set by her own family made her realize she, too, had an obligation, perhaps an even greater one in her position as a teacher. Linnea talked Superintendent Dahl into allowing the school to subscribe to the newspaper, and with the children she followed the events in Europe in an effort to understand.
The cry to defeat fascism was everywhere, but while in late January it was announced that the first U.S. troops were occupying front-line trenches, stateside military camps were still bulging with restless soldiers forced to drill in civilian clothes with broomsticks instead of rifles. Democratic fervor alone would not win the war. It would take supplies, and supplies took raw materials, and raw materials were limited. The War Board was formed to determine production priorities, and America cheerfully tightened up, cut back, and sang rousing patriotic songs. New factories sprang up overnight, turning out overcoats, shoes, rifles, gas masks, blankets, trucks, and locomotives, while all businesses not engaged in war contracts closed on Mondays. A ban was put on Sunday automobile driving. People were encouraged to use more sweaters and less coal, eat more bran and less wheat, more spinach and less meat, and adopt the “gospel of the clean plate.” But above all, Americans were asked to give.
What it gave most of was its men. A half million of them reached France by the spring of 1918, and one of the volunteers was Bill Westgaard. The church had a special service for him on the Saturday before he left, and from that day on a service flag bearing a single blue star hung in the nave, raising countless prayers that there never come a time when a gold star be sewn in its place. Shortly thereafter, Judith wrote with the news that Adrian Mitchell had received a draft notice and was already gone.
Bill and Adrian may have been rejected suitors, but it mattered little to Linnea. The war had touched her personally now, and she felt a zeal to do her part in whatever way possible.
There were countless things the children could do to help with the war effort; all they needed was organization. Noon knitting became the favorite pastime. Linnea herself sought Nissa’s help in learning how, and each mother was asked to teach her daughters. At school a chart was posted, with a star for each stocking or muffler completed. To Linnea’s amazement, Kristian and Ray showed up one day, each with a ball of yam and a pair of needles. It caused a great deal of laughter when the boys awkwardly took up the craft, but soon they had every boy in the schoolhouse joining them. With the exception of Allen Severt, who adamantly called knitting “sissy stuff” and became an outcast because of his attitude.
But all the others were willing and eager to help with all of Linnea’s plans. Patricia Lommen came up with the idea of piecing a quilt and everybody enthusiastically agreed to bring scraps of cloth from home. As the children watched it take shape, plans were begun for an auction sale at which to sell it, proceeds to be donated to the Red Cross. Word of the auction spread and the cloakroom began filling with a motley collection of donations, including several prime muskrat skins from Ray and Kristian. Libby Severt, who showed a promising talent in art, made two large posters advertising the event: one was hung in the church, the other in the Alamo General Store and Post Office. A farmer from a neighboring township volunteered a player piano and even offered to deliver it. From then until the day of the auction, the schoolhouse rang with music.
It was Nissa who suggested a Cakewalk to go along with the auction, and soft-hearted Frances who read in the newspaper about clothing drives for refugees and shyly suggested taking up a collection for that cause along with all the rest.
The big day was dubbed “War Day,” and as it approached excitement ran high and auction items overflowed into the main schoolroom. An auctioneer from Wildrose volunteered his services and old man Tveit brought an unexpected wagon of coal to put up for auction. By the time the day was over, P.S. 28 had earned $768.34 for the noble cause.
Theodore watched Linnea bloom throughout that winter. She took up her war project with characteristic enthusiasm and carried it to completion only to immediately begin another: this time a book drive for soldiers overseas. It was as successful as the auction sale had been. After the book drive came the making of scrapbooks for soldiers lying in European hospitals and the formation of a Junior League to sell liberty bonds. And when the state school board officially ann
ounced that the study of the German language was being dropped from all curricula, she stood up in church one Sunday and requested that in accordance with the current administration’s fervor for Americanization, all table prayers be said in English instead of Norwegian. How could anyone refuse a woman who’d almost single-handedly raised $768 in the name of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
And if Linnea brought a fervid enthusiasm to her organizational abilities, she brought no less to her marriage. She turned nineteen in late February and was fond of whispering into Theodore’s ear as she lay atop him in bed at night that she was learning more during her nineteenth year man in all the years of her life. And it was much more fun.
She was an ardent, uninhibited lover, insistent on “trying” things even Theodore had never tried before.
“How come you know about that?” he asked one night when the quilts were thrown back and the lantern was burning, as usual.
“Clara told me.”
“Clara!”
“Shh!” She covered his lips and giggled.
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You mean my little sister, Clara?”
“Your little sister Clara is a woman, in case you hadn’t noticed, and she and Trigg have a wonderful time in bed. But if Clara ever finds out I told you, she’ll kill me.”
“Hmm... I’ll have to remember to thank Clara next time I see her.”
She socked him a good one. “Teddy, don’t you dare!” He caught her wrists and flung her beneath him and bit her bottom lip.
“You wanna talk about it all night or you wanna try it, Mrs. Westgaard?”
Within minutes they were trying it.
Another time, after they’d made love, Linnea lay in the crook of Theodore’s shoulder, thinking of how she used to wonder what lovemaking would be like.
She chuckled and admitted, “I used to think you’d squash me like a bug if we ever made love together.”
A rumble of laughter sounded beneath her ear. “Oh? So you used to think about it?”