How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things

by A. Wilding Wells

  Rowdy sets the boys car seats on the kitchen floor. They’re thankfully zonked out. “Call the ER. I’m taking her upstairs, putting her in the bath, throw some water on for me, will ya? Make some tea. Spike it. Whatever—scotch, honey too.”

  Matilda mumbles about how hot she is. Then cold. Her body shakes in my arms as I fill the tub and strip her down. I’m terrified. Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing, but I don’t know what else to do.

  “You’re gonna be okay, love. You hear me?” Scared stiff and unsure of my words, I rub her arms and legs to get her blood moving.

  Her eyes are wet and rimmed in black as her lips tremble. Then Rowdy runs up the stairs only to hesitate at the door.

  “Just fucking come in already.”

  He hands me a steaming mug. “She might have hypothermia,” he blurts out. “Give her the tea. They said no booze,” he whispers as if he might scare her.

  I take a sip then put the mug to Matilda’s lips. She easily drinks it then lets out a breath. Her eyes are still shut, but she’s moaning, and color fills her face a minute later.

  “Is she mumbling or anything?” Rowdy asks. “They said to get her to talk. Have her count backward, something like that.” He kneels next to me. “Matilda, can you count with me?” He puts a comforting hand on my shoulder as we huddle next to the tub, looking down at her naked body.

  I stroke her head then rub her shoulders. “Matilda?”

  “Come on, girl. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight,” Rowdy says with an anxious look on his face.

  “Rowdy,” she says, sounding drugged. With her eyes shut, she wets her lips, swallows, and exhales deeply. “You looking at my tits?”

  “Matilda, oh god. You’re here.” I plunge my arms into the water to hug her.

  “Your tits look better than ever, sweetheart.” Rowdy chuckles. “Keep her in the tub. I’ll get some more tea. You want a beer?” He shuffles to his feet and heads toward the door with a grateful grin on his face.

  “Fuck yeah.” I sigh out a hard breath. “And, Rowdy… Thanks, man. I owe you.”

  “You owe me nothing, mad dog,” he says from the hallway. “You want me to bring the boys up? Lay ’em down?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind…please. You’re the best, mate.”

  “You got it, boss,” he says as he hits the steps.

  “Hey, love,” I whisper against Matilda’s wet neck.

  She gazes up at me with a toothy grin. “What the hell happened?”

  “We found you in the ditch,” I say quietly, not believing the last hour. “You were a lump of snow.” I put the cup of tea to her mouth until she pushes it away.

  Her watery eyes look exhausted. “What the hell was I thinking?”

  I kiss her forehead, feeling so grateful. “I have no idea, but you scared the crap out of me.” My eyes sting. “I will not lose you.”

  “I was fine.” She smiles.

  When she shivers, I turn a trickle of hot water on. Relief settles in my gut as more color in her cheeks appear.

  “Fine? Do you know what you mean to me?”

  “Not enough to keep Rowdy out of the bathroom.” She chuckles.

  “Rowdy saved your life. He deserved a look at your tits for that.”

  After I get her out of the bath and dried, she instantly falls asleep in our bed, as I spoon her. I’m skeptical that I’ll sleep one wink tonight. Just to be pressed against her naked flesh, just to hear her breathe, just to know she’s okay will keep me awake, thinking about what could have been and feeling grateful for what wasn’t.

  All the stress of losing Lavinia floods my brain. Truth is, as much as I hated her for leaving us, it nearly killed me when she died. Here I am, years later, and the idea of Matilda being harmed or leaving me…us…in any way… I can’t even let my mind consider the possibility. I’ve lost enough.

  21

  Balthazar

  What is it that given one, you’ll have either two or none?

  A Choice

  Weeks fly by, snow falls in heaps, and Matilda’s creativity goes on turbo-charge as we head into the holidays. Being British, Thanksgiving has never been my thing. But, now, with my boys and her… Well, I’m reassessing everything. Holidays included. I want everything for the three of them, happiness being at the top of the list.

  Matilda and I have decided to host our first Thanksgiving here at the farm. Along with Duke, Alfie, and Rowdy, she’s invited her aunt Molly from Michigan. She’s Everit’s sister—who, according to Matilda, is one of the most interesting and charming people on the planet. Oddly, she’s another member of the Pearl family Lavinia never liked to talk about. That makes sense, considering Matilda’s description of her. Eclectic.

  Matilda spends every evening sewing, crafting, or baking something for Thanksgiving. How she never takes a breather blows my mind, she’s busier than a squirrel burying nuts for winter.

  I can’t help but smile as she goes to the stove to stir something that smells of cinnamon. What a sight to watch her standing there in a flannel shirt, and one of the patchwork skirts she’s sewn herself, along with a tie of mine around her waist. I bought that tie after I’d won a contest that changed the arc of my life, thinking I was finally going places and needing to look like it.

  I mosey over to her. “Hey, where’d you find this?” I ask, tugging at the tie while peeking over her shoulder and into the banged-up copper pot. Cider. I inhale the syrupy scent as I kiss her neck.

  “Oh, I, uh…got it in your drawer,” she says, spooning up a sip and twisting her body to bring it to my mouth. “You don’t mind, do you? I love the plaid.”

  “I don’t mind anything you do, and I can think of a few things I’d like you to do. Me for starters.” She laughs as I sip the sugary, amber liquid off the tip of the wooden spoon. “Ooh, that’s good, sweet.”

  “I thought it was funny,” she says, laying her head on my shoulder as she stirs the cider. “You and a tie. I had no idea, farm boy.”

  I unknot it from her waist. “You really don’t, do you?” With my hands on her hips, I spin her to face me. “Hands behind your back, it’ll look better on you. Especially when I bend you over the table and strip off your knickers.”

  She waggles her eyebrows then places her hands behind her. “Where’d you get it from?” she asks as I bind her wrists with it.

  I glance at the clock. An hour—we have an hour, I think, trying to remember when I put the boys down for their nap.

  “When I was seventeen, the door to the orphanage opened and I walked out of it for the last time. I’d never felt more free or more terrified. They’d given me the name of a sheep farmer on the outskirts of town. I had a backpack, an address, and as much gumption as a donkey in a circus.”

  “And a tie?” she says. “Who would need a tie on a sheep farm?”

  After clearing her craft supplies aside, I twirl Matilda around, and onto the tabletop, her face riding the smooth planes of wood as her hips hit the worn edge.

  “Patience,” I say against her neck as I lean over her body. She giggles as I tickle her with my whispers while my hands slide down her back.

  “I worked there for almost a year, until I saw a writing contest in the newspaper that intrigued me the following November.” I hike her skirt over her hips then tear her lace knickers away, baring all of her to me. My hands land on her soft cheeks, which I follow with my lips.

  “Christ, Matilda. This view of you, bare and tied and bent. Spread your legs, love.” I glide the length of her wet slit with my tongue. “Sweet Matilda, always so sweet and wet.”

  “Balthazar, tell me more, the story, tell me or fuck me.”

  Popping my button fly then dropping my jeans and briefs, I continue. I’ve never fully shared what I’m telling her with anyone before. Some people deserve only part of you, Matilda commands it all.

  “I wanted to win.” I thrust inside her, receiving a pleasure-filled moan in return. “A dinner, tickets to a play, a plane ticket to America.” I thrust d
eeper, remembering that day I wrote my made-up memoirs. “The contest was to write about your favorite childhood memory of Christmas.” I chuckle, recalling how desperate I was for a new life, to reinvent myself, to become someone worth knowing. “Fuck, you feel good.” I grip her waist and drive in harder. Deeper.

  “I couldn’t write about the chair legs breaking over my back. The priest. The nuns with their yellow, crooked teeth and fat moles on their chins.”

  She gasps. “Balthazar, Jesus.”

  “I knew I could spin my childhood, so I wrote and I wrote, and I kept on writing. Who wouldn’t believe I was a half-blind orphan taken into an adoring family one frosted-over December night? I wrote a movie scene I wanted to live in.”

  Matilda inhales sharply as I thrust, then slide my hands up her back until I take hold of her shoulders for leverage.

  “Tell me more.” She moans. “I want more of you. The story and you.”

  “Fuck, you’re tight, yeah… I’ll give you more, love.” I curl my hips against her bottom, then drag her hips off the table. She clutches the edge and grinds onto me.

  “I wrote my way out of one life and into another. Wrote about the way they took me in to receive love and kindness. I wrote about overflowing stockings, and a tree burdened with a skirt full of shiny, ribbon-tied boxes. Loving, doting parents that became my own. Carols, laughter, and beauty so abundant and perfect…it was dreamlike. It oozed from my pores, my god, it felt real. Until I looked at my surroundings.”

  “Balthazar,” Matilda says quietly, “slow down. I want to feel you. You’re moving so fast, too fast.”

  I slow my hips, realizing how lost I’ve become in my story and her. Memories I don’t own, a woman I need to claim all of.

  “The sheep farm?” she asks.

  “Yeah, a barn stall lined with straw and a heap of blankets to chase the chill.” I spit out.

  “I need to… I need to fuck you harder, love. You okay with that? I just need…” Need to get that out of my head. That insane reality I invented to win a prize. An escape. I knew holidays like that existed. I could steal them, make them my own. Tie a few heartstrings on the thing to give it some wings. How hard could it be? Who has a more pathetic story than I do?

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” she says softly.

  I grab a handful of her hair with one hand and her waist with the other. Then I bring her head back to my mouth while I drape over her back.

  “Matilda, I’m in love with you,” I hiss against her neck. “I can’t help myself. I can’t.” I groan as I drive into her.

  “Balthazar, oh god,” she says as my fingertips reach between her legs to give her all the pleasure she deserves.

  “Fuck, I’m so… Come with me,” I groan out seconds before my release. I clutch her tied hands in mine, entwining my fingers into her firm grip as she cries out in pleasure.

  This woman, this lovely, soul-capturing girl—what has she done to me? Who have I become? Sharing my past, letting her understand where I came from. Revealing the desperation and ache I grew up with. Can she love a man like me? A man who’s willing to reveal who he is…the pathetic parts? My whole past wears a patch, not just my eye. I let loose in her as a new piece of me unfolds, another part of me given to her. Only her.

  “Matilda.” I collapse against her back. Then I lift for a second to untie her wrists and flip her body so I can gaze into her violet eyes.

  “I need to know more. You have to tell me. You made up your past? Is it true?”

  “Yes. I invented my past. I did that.” I yank my briefs and pants up, exhaling deeply as she appraises me. “A holiday memory fit for the big screen. Or Broadway, in my case. Now you know where I came from.”

  “All of it?” she says, pulling her knees to her chest, shoving her skirt between her legs.

  “Yes, love. All of it.” I snatch two mugs from the shelves and fill them with cider before handing one to her. “Scotch?” I walk to the pantry…I’ll be spiking mine.

  “Yeah, why not?” She holds her mug out to the bottle in my shaky hand as she straightens her skirt and adjusts her top.

  Setting her mug on the table, she slides into a chair. I slump into one in front of her, as she coils the tie around her hands until she brings it to her nose for a sniff.

  “And? You need to finish. What happened?”

  “I won.” I flashback to the letter that changed my life, to the feelings I had for who I was about to become. For the guilt I held for lying. “The contest, the tickets, the dinner, the flight, and an interview in The Times that brought me my first playwriting opportunity. I lied my way into a new life. I was finally someone to know. It was stated in print.” I run my hands through my hair as my stomach tightens.

  “And the girl,” she says, curling her hands together with the tie crumpled inside.

  “Yes, the girl,” I whisper. “The one that brought me to you, love. Your sister.”

  She bites her lips as she kicks the table leg. “You cast her, and this was the tie you wore?” She throws it around my neck and begins to knot it.

  “I cast her. And yes, while wearing this tie.” Her legs wrap around my waist allowing us to press together. “Hey, you all right? This is a part of me, yeah? You’re the only one I’ve ever told all of it to. That’s how much you mean to me.”

  “I needed to know. Wish I had seen her on stage. I’ll bet she was wonderful, such a beauty.” A flicker of irritation lights her eyes, “Why did she hate me so much?”

  The struggle we share. “Listen, love. We can’t decide how others are going to treat us or feel about us, but we can certainly decide how we’re going to deal with what they toss our way.” I stroke her cheek, waiting for the other shoe to drop, tears to fall.

  “I shouldn’t care,” she mouths with a quivering lip, which I still with a finger followed by a kiss.

  “But you do, and that’s what makes you so very you.”

  Matilda’s been knocked down more than a few times in her life. It’s what makes her who she is. Someone who’s been through the dregs a time or two. Someone who has perspective. Someone who, while raised in a privileged home, wasn’t given the love or consideration every child should be given. She’s had to work for love. No one should have to work for love. Don’t we all deserve it freely? Or does it come at a cost? Yes, sometimes it does.

  Chewing the edge of her thumb, she sucks in a shaky breath. “Did Lavinia know how you grew up?”

  “Only some of it. Very little. Lavinia was all about herself as you know. And that was fine by me for the longest time. Until she left us. Until she died,” I answer, cupping her jaw, kissing her face.

  “I don’t understand you two. Talk about a riddle.”

  “I’m sure everyone has something or someone in their past that they can’t explain. She’s mine. Maybe Cort is yours. Had he not died you’d be married to him right now.” Rubbing my nose, I close my eyes. Warm cider and scotch burn my throat as I replay her words in the barn when she spoke of Cort. It shouldn’t feel right that I’m glad someone is dead, that two people are. What a hideous thought. It’s evil, but still I’m glad Matilda is mine because they both died.

  I open my eyes. Her cheeks flush when her arms fold over her chest. “Had she not died would you be married still? Would you have forgiven her if she had come back and wanted you and the boys and the life you shared? If she begged to be with you. Asked for forgiveness.”

  “I’ve asked myself that question. I don’t have the answer. Would she have deserved another chance? I thought I had love with her, but now I know differently. I didn’t have the perspective.”

  A teasing smile crosses her face. “To understand what a good relationship could be?”

  “Yeah, to appreciate the depth it can have, or at least the potential of it.”

  “What’s going to happen with us?”

  “How could you ask that after what I just said, it was directed at you.”

  “How can I not ask it considering the obstacles in front
of us?”

  22

  Matilda

  I turn around once,

  What is out will not get in.

  I turn around again,

  What is in will not get out.

  An Iceberg

  Thanksgiving has arrived along with my deepened feelings for Balthazar. And while there’s a lightness inside of me when I think about our relationship and where it’s headed, there are also things that make my stomach queasy. My dad finding out about us first and foremost. He could take everything we’ve become and end it. Why does he still hold that power? Does he…am I letting him?

  The hiss of the record player, then the thud of the needle dropping makes my skin buzz. Balthazar’s breath tickles my ear seconds later. “Dance with me.”

  Peter Gabriel’s song “The Book of Love” fills the room as he sweeps me into his arms and leads me around the kitchen table in gentle turns. As the song nears its end, I step back while thinking about how my apron is covered in flour and smears of pumpkin pie custard. “I’m a mess. I need to get upstairs and clean up.”

  “You’re stunning. My kind of mess,” he whispers alongside my neck. His arms wrap around me and I melt into the scent of him—spiced and warm, man, and…what else? My destiny. I gaze up at his one eye, which is lovingly pinned on my face. Our smiles meet as the twins grab our legs in a hug before giggling and running away from us.

  “You’ve done so much to prepare for today. Thank you.” He places his forehead to mine. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”

  “Aww, shucks.” I giggle. “I kind of like you guys.”

  “We kind of like you too,” he says before kissing my nose.

  We loop around the kitchen a few more times as the music lulls us into a dream-like trance. The never-ending swirl of chemistry feels charged when we’re together.

  The counters and the table are a jumble of bowls and plates needing to be washed. Cake sheets are filled with potatoes that are ready to be boiled. Pies are cooling on racks as wine waits to be chilled. Gravy beginnings are on the stovetop next to the twenty-pound, brined turkey. We look like a family getting ready for a holiday. I smile and my heart swells at the idea. The four of us…everything about that sends my thoughts reeling in beautiful chaos. We’ll figure this out. We have to. But what if Dad threatens to keep the farm? Would that scare Balthazar off? Would he still want me if he couldn’t raise the boys here? Could I stay here with them if Dad is okay with the idea of us? Who could ever want anything more than what I’ve found right here? They’ve captured my heart.