Five and Some Years Before

No More Fucking

It was hot for so early in the morning so late in the year. Sweat shot off the flanks of the horse beneath her like spray off a waterfall, but Ellie didn’t let up. She drove the horse along the path between a hedgerow and a gully overgrown with weeds, jumped cut banks and outcrops of rotted blueschist. A shoulder of sun shone over the round hills behind her. The smell of pig hung thick in the air, the stink clinging to her like an oily rag. She found a gap in the hedge, headed downhill with the heedless speed of a fugitive. Only when the horse leapt the stream at the foot of the hill and stumbled did she rein in. Far enough, for now. She slipped off of the weary animal. Her feet were bare and the soft mud at stream’s edge oozed between her long toes.

She looked up the path behind her. The house was there, at the far end of the gully hidden from view by the trees. And Stuart. She looked away, ran her fingers through her hair. Allowed the dress to slide off her shoulders and drop around her feet, heedless of the mud. Felt the pig-sodden air on her bare skin. No underwear. She’d only had time to grab the dress, quickly, before Stuart knew she was leaving. He’d have stopped her if he’d known, maybe even stood watch over her while she did her morning chores, just to make sure she didn’t go anywhere. He’d caught her in the Cup ‘n’ Saucer with Luellen the day before.

The horse snorted behind her and she turned. “Thank you, Jack.” She patted the animal’s long, wet neck. “Go ahead and drink. You did good.” She kicked her dress into the bushes. Jack led her along the stream, dipping his head and gently nuzzling the water. She entered downstream from the horse. She didn’t want to muddy water he was so careful not to muddy himself. She moved with care across rocks slimy on the bottoms of her feet. In the blistering heat, the cold water offered the only indication winter would soon be upon her. Last season’s finisher hogs had been sold. Only the gilts, sows, and boars remained in her father’s barn. Work around the farm would slow down. Stuart would have more energy.

He’ll want to fuck all the time now. She gazed down at her body, at the round smoothness of her stomach, at her heavy breasts, at the tangle of pubic hair below her navel. “You got more hair down there than a gorilla.” Stuart had offered this keen observation a week before the wedding. He’d demanded an inspection, insisted they try things out, “just so we know the plumbing works for the big night.” Romantic. She didn’t think she’d ever forget her first glimpse of his long, thin penis. Twisting, purple veins stretched along its length like a disease, a violent worm. She had seen other penises, her brothers’ penises. They had seemed smooth and healthy in contrast, not so cruel and thin. Of course, she’d seen her brothers’ under the most harmless circumstances: down at Little Liver Creek swimming, in the bath at night. Stuart’s penis strained tall while she and he lay on a blanket under the moon outside her house, and it wanted inside her. All it wanted was inside.

“I don’t think we should, Stuart.”

“What do you mean? Come on.” He moaned and slid up closer to her, stroked her hair, ran a hand over her breasts. She caught it, pinned it to her side.

“Wait till we’re married.” She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder at the house.

“It’s just a stupid ceremony. This is the real stuff. Come on.”

The penis gleamed in the moonlight, almost seemed to stare at her. She wanted to turn her head away. “I can’t. Not yet.”

“You like Luellen better than me.” He sat up. “You’re not a lezzie, are you?”

His eyes lost their gleam, and she moved away from him. “I have to go.” She tried to climb to her feet, but he reached out and grabbed her.

“Wait. I’m sorry.” He gripped her hand, but she twisted away from him and ran into the house. Later that night she made her way to Luellen’s and told her about her decision not to marry Stuart after all. Luellen was supportive, but the next morning at breakfast Ellie’s mother had little sympathy.

“You shouldn’t have led him on.”

“I didn’t lead him anywhere. Stuart finds his own way.”

Her father chuckled from behind his cup of coffee, but her mother frowned at him.

“Immanuel, you’re too indulgent of this girl.”

“Hiram thinks I’m more likely to sell if we’re in-laws. Maybe just as well if—”

“Don’t interfere.” She turned her frown on Ellie. “What were you doing out late at night when you’re not even married then?”

Ellie had no response. She sat with her hands in her lap, quiet and brooding, glancing only at her father in time to catch his tightlipped submission before he pushed away from the table and left. Her mother ignored her, accustomed to her silences. Finally Ellie spoke up. “I’m not going to let you force me into this.” She stalked off, secure in her decision.

It didn’t last. Over the next few days the whispers started: strange goings-on between Ellie and that friend of hers, Jewellen. Elli walked into the church kitchen during Wednesday soup supper just in time to hear the pastor’s wife tell her mother, “It must be so hard having a child so willful. No one blames you, of course.” The words knocked the air out of her, and in that moment she knew it would never end. These people, these fine church folk—her mother included—would never free her from the cage of words they’d conjured to confine her. Bad girl. Lizzie the lezzie. Somehow her sister Myra’s sins, the smoking and drinking that started in middle school, the endless string of boys, were never discussed. But Myra had always been an afterthought—an accident according to Rob and Brett—yet fair like the rest of the Kerns. Ellie stood out, dark-haired and large-breasted. Different.

She considered running, leaving the valley for good. But she knew there was nowhere she could go. Even Klamath Falls, only forty miles down a winding county road, seemed a world away. When Luellen left for Southern Oregon University in the fall, an option never even considered for her, Ellie would be alone. Helpless. And so, come Saturday, her father escorted her down the aisle in the Victory Chapel sanctuary, pausing only to squeeze her arm and sigh before moving to his seat in the front row. It took all she had to hold back her tears as she and Stuart spoke their vows. That night the worm found its home.

Ellie sat in the brook, allowed the water to fill the smooth valley between her legs and draw away the heat. A sense of chilly calm crept up her back. The wedding had been two years before, a lifetime ago. A sharp boundary between Ellie Kern and Lizzie Spaneker, two different girls. After the wedding, she and Stuart moved onto a small farm, a joint gift from the Spanekers and the Kerns. The water rights were restricted, but adequate to run a small crop of field corn and another of barley. Ellie cared for the house while Stuart split time working on her family’s hog ranch and for his old man. In time, Stuart hoped his efforts on behalf of the Kerns might earn him a portion of the plentiful Kern water. Another foot or two per acre would enable him to plant mint or peas or potatoes, real cash crops.

Until then, the long hours kept Stuart busy and tired—a blessing for Ellie. He’d come in late at night, eat, and fall right to sleep. Every so often he awoke in the night. “I want some of the sweet stuff.” A compliant wife, she’d spread her legs. Sometimes she bled, but her mother told her bleeding was common for new brides. Ellie wasn’t so sure—Lady Latex had never mentioned it—but she kept her mouth shut. Stuart gave her money for expenses and she worked around their little farm. There were some chickens and rabbits, the garden to keep up. Housework. She stayed busy. Stuart was tired often enough that when he wasn’t she could deal with the worm.

But now it was the end of the season. Field corn laid up, barley sold. Stuart was around more, wanted sex more often. The worm remained long and thin and always stretched out tight like a steel spring.

“I’d leave him.” Luellen was home from college for a visit. “That, or make him do some reading on the concept of foreplay. They have books with pictures and everything.”

“You’re from another world.”

Luellen had no response.

As autumn settled onto the valley, Stuart came to a decision. “Let’s make us a son.” He’d barged into the house full of energy after a slow day doing equipment maintenance with his father. Just last night, Ellie thought, the waters of the brook trailing ripples from her dipped fingers. For herself, Ellie hoped for a daughter. Someone who could grow up in the house with her while Stuart was working, someone she could talk to and teach to be a woman. But when she said as much to Stuart, he scoffed.

“Someone you can lezzie with, Lizzie?” He laughed as though he’d made a joke and pressed her into the wall, kissed her hard. Then he picked her up with one arm around her waist. He carried her into their bedroom and dropped her on the bed. “Remember when everyone thought you were a witch?”

She sighed. “I’d rather forget.”

“Aw, come on. It’s kinda funny when you think about it.” He laughed again and dropped his pants. The worm looked up at her. “If you were, you could make sure it was a boy. Cast a little spell.” He giggled, amused with himself. She hiked up her skirt and pulled off her underwear. He spit on his fingers and rubbed her, cursory circles against her pelvic bone, then without warning thrust into her. She held her breath, but almost immediately she felt him shudder and ejaculate, hardly enough time for her to wonder would it be like to have the kind of lover—attentive, even playful—Luellen sometimes described. Stuart collapsed, lay panting into the depression where her shoulder met her neck. She turned her head, but couldn’t escape the smell of sweat and machine oil. “You like this?” She couldn’t tell if he was murmuring to her, or to himself. “It’sthe sweet stuff, isn’t it?” After a while he rolled to the side. She tried to creep from the bed but he grabbed her. “Stay here.” He pawed her breasts through the fabric of her blouse. “Give your witchy spell a chance to work.” After a while, he entered her again. She’d loosened up from the first time, was still moist from his semen, so she barely felt it. He fell asleep with his thumb inside her, a cork in a bottle.

When early morning came she eluded his grasp. Maybe he’d remember his joke and tell himself she cast a spell to escape, but she knew she’d simply slipped away as he slept. She had no influence over Stuart or his hand, even less over the fluid processes deep within herself. Still, Stuart might be right—his seed might take. With that thought arose a fear long quiet. “Witches,” someone had once said, “can only bear more witches.” She left the house and escaped into the countryside.

The cool stream lapped her sore vulva. Behind her, Jack began to make a fuss, eager for another run after his drink. She could sense his brisk energy, his desire to gallop again. “Witches like to do it with animals,” was one of Myra’s favorite pronouncements to the younger girls at church. Ellie eyed Jack’s hanging penis with a clinical eye. She thought it looked more wholesome than Stuart’s straining member. She shook out her shoulders, remembering the days when her hair had been long enough to hide them.

“Jack!” She clapped her hands over her head. “Go! Go home!” She wanted to be alone. The horse rolled one great eye and shook his head. “Go!” After a moment’s further hesitation, Jack stepped across the brook and trotted back toward the house. She watched him with a satisfied gaze. A tickle ran through her stomach and she wondered if she’d tapped into some primal power. The notion was ridiculous, yet strangely pleasing. She smiled into the breeze, alone and content. The last warm day, perhaps, before winter.

Jack left a muddy trail in the water as he crossed. The murk made its way down the stream bed and roiled around her. She lost sight of her legs under the floating silt. The water was cool and soothing. Thin strands of mist rose from the stream. She sat, eyes half closed, sun warm on her face and breasts. After a while, she heard the crackle of brush and looked up the gully toward the house, gasped when she saw it wasn’t the horse returning.

“Stuart—”

“What the hell are you doing?” He hurtled toward her down the slope. “You’re washing me out of you, aren’t you?” He looked terrified.

She recoiled at his approach. “I was just resting—”

“You’re lying!” She tried to scramble away, but her bare feet slipped on the slick rocks in the stream bed. “Trying to kill my son! I know it!” He caught her by the hair with one hand, wrenched her neck around. She fell onto her hands and knees in the water. Stunned. He slammed his balled fist into her cheek, then into back of her head, and she dropped onto her elbows, breasts contracting against the touch of frigid water. As she hung there, gasping, he took her from behind. “You never,” he grunted, “wanted me ... never wanted ... my son ... only care about ... that Jew bitch!” When he finished, he stood and buckled his pants. “That’ll take.” His voice quavered in the heavy air. “That’ll take no matter what you try to do.” He ducked his head, wiped one trembling hand across his mouth. The fear was still there, a shadow in his wet eyes. “Now find your clothes and get your ass back up to the house.”

Time passed. The next day and the next month. Winter came, creeping up and settling on her hard shoulders like a shroud. The breeding sows on her dad’s farm got sick and a quarter of them died. She gazed out of the shroud at her husband. “You been witching, Lizzie?” Stuart was jolly with a baby on the way. He laughed, because everyone was so pleased. His folks were pleased and her mother was pleased and her brothers were pleased. Even her father seemed a little bit pleased. And Stuart, he especially was pleased, convinced he’d fathered a boy. When he didn’t know she was nearby he’d mutter under his breath. “A son, a son. My son.” But with the sows sick and dying so artlessly in her father’s barns, Ellie visited the obstetrician. UltraSound revealed the girl growing in her womb. Ellie told Stuart there was nothing she could do. There was no magic. The caul had given her no power over her fate, or good fortune.

He didn’t believe her. He screamed, accused her of casting a spell and making it a girl. He pushed her to the floor and kicked her. She vomited. Within the hour, a pint of blood flushed the dead fetus into the toilet.

Winter stayed on hard that year. Ellie wrapped herself in a blanket and moved through the house like a ghost. She shivered as Stuart worked. He fed the surviving pigs and trucked in oil for the furnace, even collected the eggs. On her best days, her torpor made supper hours late. More often there was no supper at all. And though there wasn’t much heat in the house, even with the furnace firing around the clock, Ellie refused to share what little warmth remained in her. There will be no more fucking, she told Stuart. As her snowy shroud trickled out of the dark sky he looked into her eyes, and he believed her. He knew what she said was true.