by Tia Nevitt
“It’s ours for the week,” he said. “The innkeeper thinks we are newly wed.”
That night, for the first time, we had time, comfort and privacy. He undressed me and lowered me to the bed. I opened my legs, but he didn’t thrust into me straightaway. Instead, he kissed me and traced his fingers down my breasts, and back again, down my stomach, and back again, dipping lower and making me gasp each time.
“You’ve learned something,” I breathed against his lips.
“I’ve been getting lots of advice,” he said.
I remembered his crude explorations our first night together, and hardly thought this the same person. His advice had been very good indeed.
Of all our time together, that was the sweetest night. He treated me like a bride. For the first time, I wondered if he loved me, after all.
And that night, I finally knew pleasure as a woman.
I only had six more nights and was determined to make the best of them. I came home later and later every morning.
“You stupid girl,” my mother said, when I returned one morning. “You’ll end up pregnant.”
“I hope I do,” I said.
She gaped at me. “Have you lost all reason?” she asked. “Do you want to bring up a fatherless child? You, of all people, should know what that is like.”
Her words cut me, for I had never considered the consequences my child would face for my actions. My father had sailed away when I was young and never returned, leaving me alone with an embittered mother. My child would face an added burden—she would be ostracized as a bastard. However, I was too selfish to heed my mother, and surely I was already pregnant, anyway.
It grieves me now that I was so cruel.
During the last three days, we never left the inn at all. We stayed in each other’s arms as much as possible and even spent some time talking.
“Why did you want to marry me, Willard?” I asked. “I have warts, and I once heard Widow Harla say that I have a face as long as a horse.”
“Widow Harla is the one with the horse face.”
“But why?” I asked. “As a son of a farmer—even a younger son—you were respectable enough to go after any girl.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Because you listened, I suppose.”
“I listened?”
“Aye. I’d go on and on, talking about cows and pigs and the produce yield, and you listened.”
I thought on it for a moment. “But I was interested. That sort of farm life—I know little of it in the city.”
“Believe me, most girls find it boring.”
I swallowed past a lump in my throat. I’d never felt so valued before.
***
When he left I wept, surprised by the intensity of my grief. I comforted myself by counting down the few days left until my menses was due. After all, the timing had been perfect—we had started our affair just after my last menses, and we had certainly hit my peak fertile period many times over those weeks. The child would be a girl, and I decided to name her Aurora, after the princess.
When I saw the blood, I mourned as if I had lost a child. I had been so sure, so certain, he had planted his seed. Now, my chance was gone. My mother took great satisfaction with the arrival of my menses, and she had no pity on my tears. Life went back to its dreary normalcy.
With one exception. I was now a pariah.
Chapter Four
Lean Times
Widow Harla decided to take up brewing. We continued to teach ourselves weaving, but it seemed like every other spinster in the city had the same idea. And the cost of thread had soared once it had to be imported. Once we ran through our thread stockpile, we barely managed to keep ourselves fed. After a year or so, we sold the loom at a loss.
Since thread was now so expensive, my mother tried to make a profit in the importing business. Unfortunately, neither one of us had any business savvy for working with foreign merchants. They cheated us, and our money from the sale of the loom dwindled.
I did have an unexpected source of new joy. Two sisters moved into Tallow’s End with their godchild. Their names were Andante and Allegro, but the local children christened them Aunty Danty and Aunty Leggy. My mother, thinking that it might help cure my melancholy, arranged for me to watch the child in the afternoons so the women could do errands and make visits.
The little girl was wonderful balm for my soul. Her name was Rose, and she was a sweet and lovely babe. Whenever she saw me, she held her arms out and bounced up and down in unconditional love. It made my heart ache to be with her, but I would not have traded a moment. If I had given birth to my own little Aurora, they could have been friends. Not a year would have separated them.
I tried to shake such sad thoughts, but I was desperately lonely. The women at church shunned me, even though I had been chaste since Willard had departed. Hilda Cooper and Charlotte Farmer—Willard’s sister—were my particular nemeses. My nickname found its way back to me—Talia the Tart. Several men tried to take advantage of my reputation by forcing themselves upon me, but I was a strong, healthy girl, and soon proved that I was no easy target.
But I was friendless and bored, already weary of life. I never dreamed that my mother would be the one to make it interesting again.
***
One day, I arrived home from the market to find my mother sitting in her chair, holding a spindle. Not a hand-spindle, but a spindle from a real spinning wheel. It took me a moment to recognize it, because I was not used to seeing it as a separate part.
“Mother,” I said. Ever since the affair with Willard, I had called her that. “Where did you get that?”
She cradled the spindle as if it were a child. “Widow Harla gave it to me. She found some spare parts while she was packing.” The widow’s brewing business had been such a success that she had converted her shop to a tavern.
“What are you going to do with it?” I asked.
She looked up at me. “I’m going to build a new spinning wheel,” she said, “and you are going to help me.”
A dozen questions whirled through my mind. I remembered the constable, the armed guards, the spell-wielding fairy. “But what about the ban?”
“It’s been two years and more. They’re hardly looking for spinning wheels these days.”
“How would we hide it?” A spinning wheel has a very particular sound. Its whirring would be audible from the street.
“We’ll spin in the cellar.”
“There’s not enough light down there.”
“I’m a good enough spinster that I don’t need much light,” she said. “And one day you will be, as well.”
“But we have not the skill to build our own spinning wheel.”
“I know every part of a spinning wheel. I can picture one if I close my eyes. We will build a spinning wheel, and then we’ll have the only one in the country.”
As she spoke, I felt an interest quickening within me. Our lives were so dull—the construction of an illegal spinning wheel would certainly enliven it.
She started by having me go buy a cartwheel, which she intended to craft into a flywheel. I went to our neighbor, the wheel-and wainwright down the street. His name was Master Caleb.
“A cartwheel, Miss Talia?” Master Caleb asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Just one?” His brown eyes studied me.
“Yes, sir. Our…our cart lost a wheel.”
“I see. Could you bring the cart in, so I might match it?”
I had not thought of this. “It only needs to be about this big.” I held out my hands about two feet apart.
“But it must be matched to the other wheel, miss.”
Crestfallen, I looked at him. “Oh, I see.”
He regarded me for a moment. “However, I do have wheels for special carts. If I’m not mistaken, you must have one of those special carts.”
I, of course, had no cart at all, but he insisted on showing it to me. He led me to the back room and showed me a wheel.
It was a flywheel. From a spinning wheel. Terrified, I looked up at him.
“Do I understand you, miss?”
“But, sir, this is…this is…”
He smiled. “They only looked for intact spinning wheels, miss. They never came here to claim my unsold stock.”
“But if I should be seen?”
“I’ll wrap it up so it looks square.”
I watched him as he wrapped the wheel in burlap between two squares of wood, which I faithfully promised to return. He had nice, strong arms.
When I came home with a genuine flywheel, my mother was elated.
Mother made detailed drawings, and soon it became clear that we would need specially shaped wooden parts. We, of course, had no woodworking shop, and had not the means to make such parts.
But Master Caleb did. I decided to ask him to help us. To repay him, I resolved to become his mistress. Of course, convincing him took an effort.
He was well over thirty, probably close to forty. His wife had died about five years previously, in childbirth, after her fourth or fifth unsuccessful attempt to bear him a child. He had been grief-stricken, but I sensed he was now growing lonely. I went by one afternoon to return the boards and to ask him to make some parts. He rubbed his chin as I showed him the drawings and described what we needed.
“You mean dowels, then, I expect.”
“If you say so, sir.”
“And judging from these drawings, a lot more than that.”
“Yes, sir.”
He glanced at me. “I’d have to help you after hours. I can’t let anyone get wind of this during the day.”
Perfect. “We won’t be able to pay you until after we have an income again,” I said. “Unless, of course, you can think of another form of payment that would be…acceptable to you.”
He glanced at me. “Far be it from me to accept payment for helping a needy widow and her daughter,” he said, to my frustration.
“Then I will help you.”
“If you wish.” He seemed indifferent to the prospect. I intended to change that.
***
I arrived that night and Master Caleb began to shape parts, mostly ignoring me, or having me fetch this and that. During the course of our work, I found an occasion to shed my tightly laced bodice.
“A bodice is too constrictive for this sort of work,” I said. Without the bodice, my breasts sprang free under my shift and chemise. He didn’t appear to notice.
When I arrived the next evening, I shed the bodice right away. Later, I pretended to stumble over my overskirt.
“Women’s clothing appears to be quite dangerous for men’s work,” I commented as I untied it and tossed it aside.
He grunted, clearly discomfited by my presence. The chemise that I now wore was loose from neckline to hem. I cinched it around my waist with some twine. I left my neckline a bit exposed, and this time, he took a second, fleeting glance.
On the third night, I took off the bodice and the overskirt when I arrived. Later on, I engineered a mishap with the oversize sleeves of my chemise.
“I’ll kill myself if I try to work in these sleeves.”
“Just leave it to me, Miss Talia.”
However, I was already removing my chemise. Underneath, I still wore my petticoats and a sleeveless shift. By now, it was impossible for him to avoid noticing that I only wore underwear—even if there was a great deal of it. Normally, only a husband would see a woman attired so. Plus, the shift was not altogether opaque. He stared at me.
Clearly, he could ignore my slow striptease no longer.
Neither did he object. Especially when I took an overzealous drink of water and let it spill down my front. My nipples clung to the shift for the next half hour.
The next night when I arrived, I removed the bodice, overskirt and chemise. He watched openly, so I took my time. Then I ignored him and got to work, taking care to engineer another water spill during the course of the evening.
While drizzling some glue onto the dowels, I dribbled a few drops on my petticoats.
“Oh, dear,” I said. “I cannot afford to ruin these.” He turned to watch as I took them off, leaving my damp, shin-length shift and a set of pantaloons.
The next evening, he watched again as I removed bodice, overskirt, chemise and petticoats. Later, I snagged my shift against a saw.
“Oh, no. This material is much too delicate for this work. Would you be so kind as to lend me one of your shirts?”
He goggled at me for a moment, and then he fetched me a shirt. I went into the kitchen to change. I buttoned it chastely from neck to hips. His shirttails dangled to the middle of my thighs, and my legs were still covered with the pantaloons down past my knees.
And I returned to work. The inevitable water spill on his shirt made my nipples show through even clearer, as I hoped.
The next evening, he watched me as I shed my bodice, overskirt, chemise and petticoats. He handed me the shirt without a word. I went to the kitchen where I changed into it, only bothering to fasten the middle three buttons. I emerged, ignored him and got to work.
The top opening plunged past my breasts, and I soon took an opportunity to lean over near him, allowing it to gape completely open. When I heard him hiss, I knew he had seen what was within. I decided it was time to remove the last obstacle.
“Oh, these pantaloons!” I exclaimed in irritation. “I can’t stand the way they bunch up between my legs.” I twisted my hips in an exaggerated squirm. “Men are fortunate, that they get to wear tight trousers.”
With my words, I untied my pantaloons, yanked them down and kicked them off.
Now, I only wore his partially buttoned shirt. Still, he did nothing except stare. I leaned against the table and took a deep drink of water. It sloshed over the sides of my mug and spilled down the shirt, where it caused my nipples to contract and the shirt to cling. I put the mug down and made an excuse to reach across the table past him, brushing my hard nipple against his arm.
And then I felt his hand on the back of my thigh, just below the hem of his shirt. It was very warm.
“Miss, do I understand you?”
I turned my face away from him. I was sure that his forbearance so far was because of my ugly face. “I believe I made myself clear, sir.”
His hand slid under the shirt to my buttocks, and stilled. My breath hissed in.
“I’m twice your age,” he said.
“I doubt that. I’m over twenty, sir. And I’m sure you heard the stories they’ve said about me. Would a virgin behave as I have?”
His hand slipped between my legs and along the inside of my thigh. It slowly moved up, stopping just shy of where I needed it to be. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I’ll take your repayment after you are in business again, just as you suggested.”
“Don’t think of it that way,” I whispered. “How can I work beside you and not want you?” I spoke no lie when I said this. The past week had increased my desire for him from a mere second glance to full-fledged passion.
He hesitated, and then he slipped his hand up that last torturous inch. I writhed as his fingers danced on and within me. Then, he took his hand away and moved behind me. He reached around me with both arms. One hand went high to cup a breast, and the other went low and under the shirt. I ran my hands along his forearms as they moved upon me. They were large and as hard as tree branches, but his hands had a touch as gentle as leaves.
“You have a beautiful body, Talia.”
No one had ever said such a thing to me. I reached up behind me, twined my fingers in his hair and rested my head on his shoulder. I could not keep still as his hands roved over my body with the practiced skill of a man who had kept his wife happy for many years. It had been so long since Willard, and the weeklong striptease had affected me as much as he.
He moved both hands across my lower belly to the opening of the shirt. With one sharp pull, the three buttons burst.
***
And so,
I became Caleb’s mistress. His generosity kept us from starving that year. He continued to make us parts and teach me carpentry techniques. And he taught me the difference between a man and a boy.
At first, I tried to keep my back to him, convinced that I was too ugly for him to look upon. But one day he firmly turned me around, looked me in the eye and said, “You are not as ugly as you think, Talia.” He made love to me face-to-face, and I wept afterward.
With Caleb, I also confirmed what I had suspected after Willard. I was barren.
It took me almost a year to build a working spinning wheel. I would not have been able to do it at all without his help, but his expertise was in wheels and hoops, not spinning wheels, especially when constructed from memory. The first wheel would not turn freely. The second would not stay together under the stress of the spinning flywheel.
The third one worked.
And we were back in business. Mother’s customers were delighted to be able to buy domestic thread again. She was able to charge more money than she had in the past, because the spinning wheel ban had driven the price of thread up so high. Mother took great efforts never to admit to owning a spinning wheel—she was no fool. Only our neighbors, who were relieved at our renewed livelihood, and our most trusted customers, eventually learned the truth. She continued to import a small quantity of thread every month, to keep up appearances.
I made improvements to the wheel, gleaning the experience I had acquired over the past year. Soon, our thread was even finer than it had been before the confiscation. I learned how to spin in the dim light of the basement and became sallow from a lack of sunlight.
Caleb married a young widow and our affair was over. I told myself it didn’t matter, that I always knew he’d never loved me. Still, I wept at night for weeks.
Chapter Five
Rose
To escape my loneliness, I spent more time with little Rose. Aunty Danty and Aunty Leggy were seamstresses, and they were happy to leave her in my care in a back room while they tended to their business. They seemed to be oblivious to my tawdry reputation, or perhaps they didn’t care. It appeared to be enough to them that I loved Rose and that she loved me.