The Witch of Cologne

Mein Mann, my husband, she thinks, marvelling again at the intimacy, the unquestioning bond between them, which has blossomed over the past four years. Four years of extraordinary change, and also loss, for after Jacob Ruth failed to hold another pregnancy. She has suffered three miscarriages and suspects that, in the haste of the first birth, her cervix was torn thus destroying the chance of a second child. With each loss she grieved anew, despite Detlef’s reassurances that one healthy child was blessing enough.

He pulls her face to his and kisses her, the intelligence between them quickening as their tongues explore, finding that familiar core of desire which shoots through both their bodies and leaves them trembling.

Detlef pushes off her linen cap as Ruth’s hands pluck at the laced crotch of his hose. She wants him naked, against her. The sweat of his skin sweetening her mouth. She desires him now. But he makes her wait, his mouth travelling down her neck, biting into her as his hands throw up the back of her skirt and roughly tear down her petticoats. Cupping her buttocks he buries his face between her breasts, searching for the long hard nipples that press against the silk of her undergarment.

Staring for a moment at the darkening areolae which glow beautifully against the pale skin of his wife’s breasts, Detlef marvels at how the familiar can remain so inherently unattainable. No matter how many times he makes love to her, how many times he sees her face quicken with ecstasy, there is an aspect of her closed to him, as if somewhere between her own arrest and the murder of her father she lost the ability to trust, and with that the ability to truly surrender herself. It is this impassable landscape which he is always trying to conquer that keeps him in a constant state of burning. And it is this restless state of exclusion that propels him across the countryside, as if he can only know he is truly loved through his impassioned sermons and the fevered eyes of his inspired audience.

Squeezing one nipple he sucks down on the other hard, sharp, feeling her pain quicken to pleasure then back to pain, while his fingers play her, penetrating her roughly, wanting to possess her, reach her, make her moan. Then, when she is tearing at his hair, her legs quivering, he buries his face beneath her skirts and kneeling plays her with his mouth until she bursts in bliss. Only then does he gently place his thick hard organ against her swollen lips, resting for an infinitesimal exquisite moment as he stares into her eyes, the memory of their lives together spiralling back like a delicate seaplant in an ocean of deep emerald. He enters her so slowly that Ruth fears she will scream again, wanting him to fill her, to obliterate all but his pulsating flesh throbbing within her.

He takes the tip of her tongue, sucking gently he mirrors the action of his cock, riding her faster and faster until he has her feet locked behind his neck, the bulk of him encompassing her whole body

as he fills her over and over until both of them come in a shuddering wave. The intensity of which, as it ebbs, makes them break into spontaneous laughter.

Lifting her up on his hips, he carries her over to their sleeping cot set high in the wall, enclosed by a curtain. There he lies her down, and after peeling off his jerkin and hose falls beside her, one heavy hand curled across her narrow waist as they both tumble into deep sleep.

‘Papa! Papa!’

A small pink hand creeps around the edge of the drape. Detlef opens one eye as the hand finds its way to his big toe and pulls. A shriek of delighted laughter follows as Detlef, smiling, gently shifts Ruth’s sleeping head from his shoulder and pulls the curtain across. Jacob, naked except for a smock, a spinning top trailing behind him, stares up at his father with huge eyes, blond curls tumbling to his shoulders.

‘Papa!’ he demands, stamping his bare foot as he reaches out to be held. Detlef swings him into the cot, tucking the restless child down beside Ruth who sleepily cradles both her husband and son.

Jacob pulls at his father’s ears then tries to put a finger up his nose as Detlef allows his son to crawl over his chest. The boy is indulged, that Detlef realises: his colleagues are always ridiculing him for being such a lenient and attentive father, but he cannot help but adore his only child.

He has never quite recovered from the immeasurable happiness he first felt on staring into that face which reflects so much of himself. A certain pensiveness he has seen flickering in the young boy’s eyes; Jacob’s joy at small things—ants dragging a beetle, his first snowflakes, the cat yawning. The four year old’s mouth and nose, a distinctive bent to his forefinger, are of Detlef’s family but the green eyes and the determined chin are his mother’s, as is the child’s quickening to anger.

Through half-opened lashes Ruth watches her husband with their child. He is so calm with him, she thinks, marvelling at the way Detlef’s face softens immediately Jacob is in his arms. Instinctively the boy knows his father, recognises Detlef’s quiet but intense curiosity, his sudden flashes of impatience, his gentleness, as character traits of his own. Perhaps this is why so few words pass between them, she observes, as if father and child can read each other’s minds without the necessity of speech. She is a lucky woman indeed, to have married for love and intellect and now to have the gift of a child who will carry on both their spirits in time.

‘My colleagues wonder why my son is not yet baptised,’ Detlef remarks upon hearing Ruth sigh.

“Tis none of their business.’

‘The Remonstrant brotherhood is most liberal, however for one of their own ministers to have an unbaptised son and a wife who will not attend church…’

‘By his mother’s heritage the child is a Jew, he cannot be baptised. I will not permit it, not after what happened to me.’

‘So not baptised but circumcised. Ruth, what are we bringing up in the world? A Jewish Protestant? The poor babe is neither fish nor fowl.’

Ruth props herself up and stares at her husband; a cheeky smile is playing across his mouth. Just then Jacob triumphantly inserts one of his fingers into Detlef’s nostril. Detlef pulls the offending finger out then grabs Jacob and lifts him up in the air. The child squeals with delight, his limbs kicking freely.

‘Jacob shall be a citizen of the new world. When he is of age he shall choose for himself which faith, if any, he wishes to pursue. I will not have any doctrine thrust upon an innocent,’ Ruth replies then playfully bites Detlef’s shoulder.

Smiling, he lowers the laughing child. ‘Until then, to whom, pray, are we to entrust our child’s soul?’

‘Ourselves. As parents we are guardians of both the physical and the spiritual wellbeing of our child.’

‘I think I could persuade the brothers to accept that argument.’

‘A pox on them all if they don’t.’

‘Wife, you are still the heretic, even in this liberal city.’

‘Now more a seeker of knowledge than a heretic, in as much as my sex will allow.’

‘I will not have you adopt male attire again. I suspect that would create a scandal even the Remonstrants might find hard to explain. We shall employ the maid at night also to allow more freedom for your studies.’

‘Detlef, they will burn you yet,’ she murmurs, smiling.

‘Indeed they may. But my deal is not struck yet. My barter has conditions,’ he says, tickling her.