Chapter 7
When I arrived home, Kyle was already awake, seated at the dining table with a clean-shaven face, a steaming cup of tea in hand. His face brightened as I entered, two carrots in tow.
"You could've woken me up. I'd've gone to the market with you, love."
"Today is your day," I declared, setting the carrots on the table. "Leave everything to me!" I added with a wink.
He opened his mouth, hesitated, and promptly avoided my gaze, staring at some nonspecific point on the table.
Oh, I knew this look well. This was the look of a man who wanted what lay beneath my dress but lacked the courage to say or act on it. I would wager my healthy right leg that this hesitation was precisely why he remained a virgin until I married him.
With a mischievous smirk, I settled myself on his lap. "Tell me," I said sweetly, "what does the birthday boy desire?"
Kyle's face turned a shade of red. Unbelievable, even now. This man, a fully grown thirty-five-year-old woodcutter who faced down wild animals and felled trees with his bare hands, blushed like a maiden at the mere suggestion of impropriety.
"T-that…" he stammered, his words tripping over themselves.
"'That?'" I echoed. "And what, pray tell, is 'that?'"
"Y-you…"
"'That,' 'me,'" I teased, leaning closer. "You will have to articulate, husband. Use your words."
Kyle's blush deepened, his hands awkwardly resting on my waist.
Now, do I find immense pleasure in the carnal aspects of marriage? Not particularly. Do I mind it? No. Marriage, after all, comes with its duties, and I, flawed as I am, strive to be a decent wife. It is a small price to pay for a life shared with a man who, though as timid as a field mouse, is loyal to his core.
Moreover, Kyle's younger brother, being of a more diminutive stature, renders the ordeal far less cumbersome. Indeed, hardly an ordeal at all. How I came to possess such knowledge?
Ah, the dreadful lessons. A most harrowing experience thrust upon Cecilia and me when I had scarcely seen my thirteen year, she but twelve. The memory alone sent a chill through my veins. Foremost among the specters of that wretched time is the indelible figure of our tutor, Mrs. Homtess. A name I found wholly unsuitable. In my private disdain, I rechristened her Mrs. Homtrash, a moniker far better suited to her deplorable character.
How could one forget such a creature? She swept into our lives draped in self-importance, her manner as grating as her voice. She brought with her an arsenal of diagrams, lectures, and ghastly props, which even now make my skin crawl at their recollection. I shudder to think of those mortifying sessions where we were made to stand exposed before her critical eye, her lecture delivered with the enthusiasm of a scholar dissecting specimens.
Her pointer danced along every inch of our anatomy, reducing us to objects in her grotesque display of "education."
"And this," Mrs. Homtrash had said, gesturing dramatically with her pointer, "is a most essential asset in pleasing a gentleman."
And the props. Oh, the infernal props. Mrs. Homtrash had presented them with an array of objects so absurdly varied in size and shape that I, to this day, wondered if the woman had raided a mad sculptor's workshop. Each item was more horrifying than the last, and yet we were expected to handle them as though these bizarre tools were perfectly ordinary.
"Now, grip firmly and with grace," Mrs. Homtrash had instructed, her sharp eyes scrutinizing every movement. "A limp conveys disinterest. Use both hands if you must. Use your tongue!"
I had stared at the largest of the props with open disdain as I attempted to fit the tip in my mouth, wondering what sort of monstrosity of a man would ever warrant such a thing. Cecilia, always poised, had merely tightened her jaw and complied.
But the indignities did not end there. No, Mrs. Homtrash had insisted we French kiss a pair of glass lips crafted by some eccentric artisan. "For practice," she had said, pushing the fake lips into our unwilling hands. Every misstep, every improperly placed tongue or uneven press of the lips, was met with a sharp sting of the whip against Cecilia's calves.
"Artistry," Mrs. Homtrash would bark, leaning so close her breath was a nauseating. "Your tongue must dance, not flounder. Again!"
I had to bite my own tongue to keep from retorting. How did one even dance with a tongue? And on glass, of all things?
The self-pleasure, however, was the most mortifying lessons of all. Mrs. Homtrash had decreed that we must learn how to "arouse ourselves," claiming it was an essential skill to rouse the interest of any gentleman. "A man must see the passion in your eyes, the allure in your movements!" she had declared dramatically.
I had come perilously close to fleeing the room on those dreadful days, my dignity clinging by the thinnest of threads. Cecilia had whispered calming words to me, though her own mortification was as plain as mine. We endured, side by side, subjected to everything except direct penetration. And as if the torment itself were not enough, this charade had persisted for four long, miserable years.
At the end of it all, Mrs. Homtrash had the audacity to proclaim us "professionals." Professionals? Even now, the memory makes my blood boil. Professionals in what, precisely? Professional whores?