He is supposed to climb on top of me now. Housemother said it is quick—a sharp tearing, a period of thrusting, then it is done. It would be brief and painful, and must be weathered the way one weathers a storm. But he does not move, and the waiting stretches, and Housemother’s second instruction surfaces.
If your husband hesitates, it is your duty to begin. Take his member in your hand. Grip firmly. Move your hand. He will respond.
I roll onto my side and reach across the narrow gap between us. My palm finds him through the thin fabric of his sleeping trousers.
His male member is hard. The rigid length of him fills my hand even through the cloth, and the heat of it against my palm is shocking. I close my fingers the way Housemother instructed, firm and deliberate, and begin to move my hand.
Ronan’s entire body convulses.
He is off the mattress so fast I don’t register the movement until he’s standing two feet from the bed, one hand raised, his chest heaving. His green eyes are blown wide.
I freeze. My hand hovers in the empty air where his body was a moment ago.
I did it wrong. I must have done it wrong.
I replay the instruction. Hold firmly. Move your hand. Did I squeeze too hard? Not hard enough? Housemother never specified the speed or the pressure, and I?—
“What are you doing?” His voice is strained. Not angry. Not quite. But every nerve in my body hums with tension, and I want to make myself smaller.
“I am fulfilling my wifely duty.” I keep my voice level. I sound calm, but beneath the calm, panic churns. “A marriage must be consummated on the wedding night. It is not holy until?—”
“Oh, Jesus.” His breathing is ragged, his jaw clenches, and he rakes his fingers through his hair with enough force to nearly pull it loose from his scalp. “Is this… Was this one of their rules?”
“Housemother Ruth prepared me.” I sit up, drawing the sheet to my collarbone. “A wife who does not offer herself on the wedding night is in defiance of scripture. I am to present myself, submit to your?—”
“Prudence.” He says my name with force, but not cruelty. The sound of it stops the words in my throat. “I need you to hear me very clearly when I say this—I am not rejecting you.”
I stare at him. His face is doing two things at once—tight around the mouth, softer around the eyes. He paces three steps, stops, turns, and crouches so we are at the same height. His hands rest on his knees. He does not touch me.
“When we become intimate—if we become intimate—it won’t be because you owe me a debt. It won’t be because someone told you your body is a payment.” He pauses, choosing. “It will be because you want it. You choose it.”
I have heard those words before—want, choose—but they have never been directed at anything pertaining to me or my body.
“When I gave you the guest room, I was trying to give you space. Time to breathe. To adjust. Not punishment.” He runs a hand over his jaw. “And now, sharing this bed—we share the bed now, and I’m glad we do. But sharing the bed doesn’t mean you have to—” He gestures vaguely and won’t finish the sentence.
He is waiting for me to understand. I can see it in the way he searches my face. He is willing me to absorb what he is saying and find comfort in it.
I absorb nothing. I am drowning.
The logic is clear. A wife undresses, lies beside her husband, puts her hand on him—and he leaps from the bed as if scalded. He uses words designed to sound kind, but the truth beneath them is a truth I have known my entire life. I am not enough.
What is wrong with me?
Is my body so repulsive that even a husband who sleeps inches away recoils at my hand?
“Prudence? Talk to me.” Ronan’s voice is gentler than before. He has moved closer, but he still is not touching me.
“I understand.” My voice is hollow. “I will not trouble you again.”
“That’s not—” He drops his head and mutters words I cannot hear. When he lifts it, his eyes hold mine, fierce but anguished. “You aren’t troubling me. You’re—listen, you’re beautiful, and I’m not made of stone. But I refuse to be another man who takes from you without asking.”
I pull the sheet higher and nod. My hands clutch the fabric beneath my chin.
“Try to sleep,” he says. He stands and moves to the opposite side of the bed. The mattress dips as he lies down. He is on top of the covers. A blanket barrier is between his body and mine.
I turn away from him, curling onto my side, pulling my knees to my chest.
The bed is enormous compared to the mat I slept on in the Enclave, barely wider than my shoulders. The distance between his body and mine seems vast, but in truth, I could touch him were I to reach out. I will not. Not again.
