Woman's Own

  “Oh, you couldn’t!”

  “It leaves too much proof on your skin.” His finger came up to her lip, and she gently kissed the tip. “What will we do next, Emily?” he asked.

  “Oh,” she sighed, sounding either sad or tired. “I don’t know. I’ve barely accepted the here and now.”

  “It can be any way you say.”

  Her memory was tugged and it brought a woeful sigh. “More than anything else, Noel, you’ve been the dearest friend. I hadn’t thought I needed a friend this much.”

  “You have a lot of friends. So many friends a man can hardly--”

  “Not friends, really. Boarders, neighbors, family. Except Sophia, who is truly a friend.” She tweaked his mustache. “Lacking in some things,” she teased.

  “Would you tell a good friend?” he asked. “Tell me, Emily, what worries you? What holds you back?”

  “I think you’ve guessed. Haven’t you?”

  “Nope. You been alone sixteen years and you don’t seem the kind of woman should be alone.”

  “I hope you won’t think poorly of me, Noel. I haven’t confided to anyone before. I’ve told Sophia a little, but Sophia is the kind of woman who understands a great deal without needing to be told. And my daughters…well, I find the truth too cruel for them. So cruel that there are times I wish I didn’t remember so well. My marriage did not last long at all. Exactly two years after Lilly was born, President Lincoln called for Union soldiers--and I was not sorry that my husband left me. I have not seen my husband, nor his body, since.” She let her eyes meet his. She felt stronger by telling him this much. And she didn’t think for one moment that he would think poorly of her; it had become a habit of hers to apologize for unseemly behavior ahead of time. “I have never missed him.”

  They were surrounded by quiet while their eyes embraced. “I was afraid you missed him,” Noel finally said. His voice was quiet as a whispering breeze, filled with relief.

  “I was not so young that I should have been so foolish,” she said. “My father had died, and my mother and I, in our grief and fear of being alone, could not agree on anything. I believed I loved the man I married. Worse, I believed he loved me. We were together very briefly, a harsh time. My daughters don’t remember him. He was a terrible, angry man, a liar of the worst stamp. He had given no clue that he would abuse me. He had courted me gently, but he was not a gentle man. I should have acknowledged his lies, but young love,” she said, “is too ignorant for words.”

  Noel’s complexion darkened in anger. His lips were tight. He wanted to know what her husband had done to her. He wanted to ask, but didn’t dare. First, he had to let her tell her piece at her own speed. Second, he didn’t know how he might react if she told the worst. He watched her eyes.

  “I don’t want Patricia and Lilly to know how mean and uncaring their father was, but at times I’m nearly persuaded to tell Patricia, shock her into hearing me, frighten her into taking fewer risks. I defied my mother and Patricia defies me. I married impetuously, full of ridiculous notions of how many ills love would cure, and the truth came hard. I’m afraid it could happen to my daughter, yet I don’t know how to prevent it.”

  “Are you ever afraid that’s how it would be with me?” he asked her. “Do you ever think I’m well-mannered now, and later you’ll find out the truth about me?”

  “No,” she said honestly. “The past two months have been like growing up all over again. I had been afraid of these feelings. And…I had been afraid I was long past feeling them.” She massaged his temples with her fingertips. “What about you, Noel? Why haven’t you married? Is there a broken heart in your past?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “Once.” He laughed. “Not like yours. I found me a woman on my second trip out to Colorado to visit with my pa. My pa wasn’t a talker--he pretty much snorted and grunted his answers and never sat me down to talk. By the time he died, we had a whole language of just sounds. When I was young and was with him for a while between schools--a real stickler, he was, determined I’d get schooling--he kept himself busy with the land, traps, horses, the ranch. He was tough and silent. There was a trading post down river, and I’d go there sometimes. The biggest event of my week was when my pa would let me take the wagon or boat to the post. And I fell in love with this woman who lived near there. Seemed she was always there when I passed by and always smiled at me. I thought she loved me, too. Now I was seventeen, mind. I don’t know her age. And, never wondered if she was married, or how she earned her keep, or why she was always free to be sitting out front, smiling and waving and talking through the door rather than working. So, I told my pa that I wanted to see this lady, court her, take her a present, and maybe have her fix me a supper. And my pa looked at me real peculiar, a frown like, and then he said, ‘Well, then, I reckon you’re ready.’ That was the extent of his lessons about men and women. Can you guess the rest?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, innocent, curious.

  “Do you think you can stand to hear it?”

  “Why? Is it shocking?”

  “Well,” he chuckled, his cheeks darkening in spite of himself. “It’s pretty well accepted out West, especially around trading posts and forts. There’s a lot of men, tired, hard-working, long-traveled men. Not a lot of women--just a few wives and daughters. And a few like that one I thought I loved.”

  “Oh!”

  “Turned out she just wasn’t the marrying kind.”

  “Oh! You must have been outraged! Poor boy, to stumble into the path of a woman without virtues!”

  “Now there you go,” he laughed. “She was a good woman, more or less. She wasn’t proper, I don’t mean that. But she wasn’t a liar or thief. She was fair and pretty and kind to everyone. The other women wouldn’t talk to her. I reckon they were afraid their husbands went to her house.”

  “But you didn’t respect her!”

  “I never disliked a person with a tender heart. She lived an honest way. Now, if she was pretending to be the preacher’s wife when she was really something else, then I wouldn’t respect her. But she didn’t pretend to be anything she wasn’t.”

  “But you didn’t--?”

  “Now, Mrs. Armstrong, you don’t expect a gentleman would talk about a lady.” He smiled broadly at her crimson blush. “Shame on you. You’re hankering to know.”

  “You’re teasing me! You and your tall tales of the West!”

  “What’s going to happen with us next, Emily?” he asked again, causing her smile to fade into that serious, contemplative expression.

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid to think about that yet.”

  “There isn’t any reason for you to be afraid. Of anything.”

  “So easily said. I’m not a young girl, Noel. I have a house to keep, daughters to raise, responsibilities. I can’t ignore all that, I can’t start over, I can’t just pretend that at this age I can--”

  “I love you, Emily. Aside from that one time, when I was just a boy, I haven’t loved a woman. You don’t have to make up your mind about me, but you don’t have to be afraid. I’m a forty-year-old man, Emily. Can’t neither one of us start over. All we can do is go on.”

  She looked away, and he sat up. He put an arm around her waist. “All this talking,” he said. “That’s what I missed growing up. I think that’s what I like second best about us.” She glanced at him, smiling sheepishly. “You’re a good talker, Emily. Good listener, too. Do you reckon that since we’re as old as we are, we’ll do more talking than anything else?” He waited for her answer, but it didn’t come. She was covered with evidence; her eyes were fever bright, her lips were chafed from kissing, and there was excitement, temptation in her smile. “You stop talking, though, when it comes to your worries. You just can’t ask me, can you? But you know the biggest reason you had yourself a bad husband is because you didn’t talk things over much first.”

  When she didn’t reply, he took her by the shoulders and gently lowered her down on the blanket. She lay
on her back, looking up at him; Emily had a way of looking at him so head-on that he felt the same as when her arms held him close. He kissed her lips, softly, not wanting to chafe her skin any more than he had. Then he stretched out his long legs to lie down too, on his side, his chest against her chest.

  “I’ll marry you,” he said. She looked away instantly. “Or not, whatever you say. But we’re going to be together, you and me, pretty soon.”

  “I’m thirty-seven years old, Noel. In some ways that’s old--in other ways it’s not old enough.”

  “I know a few things, Emily. I know how to keep from giving you a baby.”

  She gave a little huff of rueful laughter.

  “But I’m telling the truth,” he said, as if he knew she’d been told that lie before.

  “There is no way to prevent that.”

  “There is. More than one way. If you’re worrying that you’re too old to have any more children--”

  “You don’t want a child of your own? A son?”

  He shrugged. “A little late for all that, I think. But now I’ve found you, I’m not letting you get away.”

  “You’re hurrying me. You’re--”

  “No, Emily, there ain’t no hurry. On the other hand, let’s not waste a lot of time. We’ve both been alone long enough.”

  He kissed her again, and again his lips were gentle on hers. His fingers, a little clumsy on the tiny buttons, opened her blouse at the throat. He kissed the hollow of her neck and felt her pulse. He lowered his mouth to the lace top of her camisole and nibbled at it. Her skin became flushed, fragrant, salty, warm. Against his cheek, through the blouse and camisole, he felt her nipple become hard, and he raised himself up, looking into her eyes while he gently worked open three more buttons.

  He remembered twenty-three years back. He’d washed, put on his good shirt and jacket, and taken a fistful of wildflowers to the shack by the trading post. Her name was Rosemary, and she came to the door in a shift so transparent he could see the two dark spots on her full breasts and the shadow of dark hair where her legs were joined. Two men sat at her table sharing a bottle. He’d been so angry he dropped the flowers and ran back to his pa, but he hadn’t told anything.

  He asked around then and found out how much, found out who she’d do it for. Then he went by in the daytime and asked her if she’d do it for him. And she said she would, but she looked pretty doubtful, like maybe she didn’t really want to. But he squared off his thin shoulders--he’d been six feet tall for a long time but hadn’t filled out much--and said he wanted to be sure he was the only one that night. Double then, she said, still looking like the idea didn’t sit well with her.

  He didn’t bother with the flowers or his best shirt. He did take a bath in the river, though. And he would never forget how scared he had been--not that it had changed his mind about what he’d wanted. And he vaguely remembered anger, like a boy left out of the game.

  She asked him why he came to her. He told her that if she was bedding with all the other men she didn’t love, she shouldn’t mind doing it with him. She did love some of them, she said. The ones that were lovable. Most weren’t, she added. But a few of the men who crossed her porch and went inside were like angels; they knew what to do, how to make a woman happy, and she hated to take their money. She wouldn’t, in fact, if she didn’t need it. He told her he wouldn’t likely be one of them, since he didn’t know much about it. Well then, she had said, come here and let me show you how to be one of the angels--where to put your fingers, your lips--because you would be an easy one to love. And she had refused to take his money. She had gentled him into manhood, and the fear, the anger, the disillusionment--all the things that had driven him--fell away.

  Noel cupped Emily’s breast in his large hand. He used his thumb to slowly lower her camisole. Even though each was with someone new, in part they loved from memory. It was not other people they thought about now, but how their bodies were meant to respond at a time like this. This was not the frenetic, excitable whimsy of the young; it was not the giddy yet explosive need of curious children. They shared a tender passion that was effortless, natural, yet new. First love was clumsy, wildly expedient. This was mature love--love that knew how to reach out and touch in an almost familiar way, taking simple, solid, uncomplicated pleasure from each other. It was good that they were older. There would be less nonsense, and loving was serious business. It was easier to accept the joy of a lover’s touch and feel grateful.

  His tongue teased her erect nipple, and he felt himself grow hard. He wished he wouldn’t yet, but it was too late. He figured he was going to suffer some. He sucked at her gently and grew stiffer when she moaned. He was going to actually hurt, but he’d have to be willing to hurt some for her. His hand ran down over her slender skirt and he began to slowly gather it up while his mouth played leisurely against that prominent little knob. Underneath he found a bounty of underclothes; enough to have done a dry goods store a good day’s business. But her pantalets were short and loose around her thighs. His fingers entered; he spread his hand across her abdomen. He was slow; he wanted her to know from his unhurried caress that he regarded this as a luxury. His fingers, though thick and callused, moved delicately over the hair and down.

  He pushed himself against her thigh so she would know that what had happened to her had also happened to him. There was no resistance in Emily, and he knew this meant trust. Her body yearned. As did his. The feeling was not easy with him anymore. He took her mouth with his while his fingers moved deeper. Deep, into her, where she was lush.

  “Not yet,” she whispered after the kiss. “Not yet.”

  He had really known that. Still when the time came it was so hard to accept. Her body was ready, but her heart and mind were reluctant. Grown-up lovers, he reminded himself, didn’t only know how to respond genuinely, they also knew how to savor each touch and taste…and how to wait. He wouldn’t make the mistake of forcing her to repeat herself even once. He didn’t have to win. Even if he could have her despite protests, what would he have? Not enough. He would hear her invite him sometime, and that would make it right. He pulled his hand away from her flesh and smoothed down her skirt. He lay his head on her shoulder and began to attempt to redo those tiny buttons.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Never be sorry with me,” he returned. “Let’s just lay here quiet and still for a minute.”

  “I shouldn’t have let you--”

  “You should have. Shhhh.” He resigned himself that he could not, under the circumstances, handle those little buttons. He pulled the blouse closed and left it like that. And it was quite a while before he trusted his breathing enough to rise up, look in her eyes, and say, “Don’t ever be sorry with me. I’m a patient man, Emily. And I promise I won’t hurt you, hurry you too much, or be angry with you. It’s high time you stopped blaming yourself for the things other people say and do. That was him, not me.”

  He wouldn’t be able to forget, though, how quickly she was ready for him. She was so contradictory, which only made her more desirable. She was proper, generous, and always caring about doing the right thing. A good woman. And then there was that heat in her blood, as natural in Emily, who had remained chaste, as in Rosemary. Who would think, to look at Emily, to listen to her, that she had such passion? She was afire with it. He promised himself he would not let her down, not ever.

  Their ride home in the afternoon in the open carriage was sweet in silence, their hands touching now and then. It was curious the way he’d remembered Rosemary. When he’d seen her again a few years later, she’d gotten a lot more than a few years older. He remembered her prettier, softer, younger. But she was still kind and good in her heart. Tender. Soon Noel realized that the feeling of love made people appear more perfect than they really were.

  Noel had not been with many women. There had been only a few. He didn’t know whether he was good with them, whether the things he’d been taught were useful. He wasn’t a confident lover,
only sincere. He’d learned that grown people can cry like small, hurt children on the inside and pretend they didn’t. So he was careful, meaningful in what he did. Especially in the act of loving. He wanted to be pleasing, and usually women acted pleased if he judged right. For the first time in all those years he had a feeling like he’d had with Rosemary--that feeling that he wanted to crawl inside a woman and be part of her. He loved Emily. Like her, he had feared he was past that.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly when they were on her street. “It was a lovely, lovely day.”

  “Was it?” he asked her. “Did it make you happy?”

  “Oh yes, Noel. Yes.”

  “And not afraid?”

  She touched his hand. “Not afraid. Just give me a little time to get accustomed to this. It’s been so long since I’ve trusted good feelings.”

  His mustache lifted, and his teeth showed in a grin. But behind his grin he had a thought. She hasn’t said she loves me.

  Lilly was aware of a new conspiracy in the boardinghouse, and for once it didn’t involve Patricia. Because of Lilly’s age and the limited experience she had with romantic love, she was slow to realize what was happening. To begin with, hushed conversations continued long past Patricia’s troubles. Emily, with uncalled-for gravity, had talked to Lilly.

  “I have been invited to make a picnic lunch and go for a buggy ride with Mr. Padgett, Lilly. Next Saturday.”

  Lilly had stared at her mother, not at all sure what was expected of her. She finally shrugged.

  “And would you approve?” Emily had asked, her brows furrowing as though she braced herself for a response.

  “Well, yes, I suppose, I--Why wouldn’t I approve, Mama?” Or why would my approval matter? she wanted to ask. It had not occurred to her until much later that Emily’s sense of responsibility was so deep that she felt she needed permission from anyone who might be affected by her actions.

  Emily had touched her hand, grateful, saying, “Thank you, dear. That’s very generous of you.”