CHAPTER ONE
Celia
Tyler, Texas
September 1885
It was too hot to be outside. Although, it was too hot to be indoors as well. The summer heat had yet to diminish and the ground was hard packed and bone dry. I glanced up and squinted. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. No way to shield myself—besides my straw hat—from the sun. My dress, with the high neck and long sleeves, was stifling. Sweat soaked the back of my corset and I longed to strip off the excess layers of clothing for just my shift.
It had been a long day. John’s office hours were in the mornings on Tuesdays and he’d had several patients waiting when we arrived at eight. My husband wasn’t the only doctor in town, but people came long distances if ailing enough and there was enough business for all three of them. Today’s ailments had included an impacted tooth, a colicky infant, a case of pneumonia and a broken finger. When he left for lunch, I was left behind to clean up and send those who arrived after the noon hour—when John went to the hotel’s restaurant to eat his meal—in the direction of the other two doctors. He was very precise, very strict in his routine and did not vary from it.
While he spent his afternoon at his home office—always with the door closed so as not to be disturbed—I often went to the houses of those who had been seen, checking on them, tending to them. Specifically the women patients. None of the men, for it would not be appropriate. I wasn’t even supposed to visit the ladies, but who else would? Not John, for if they did not appear in his office, injury apparent, or have money to pay for a house call, he was not interested.
And so I spent my afternoon tending to the sick, rocking babies, even washing a few dishes. John laughed at my pedestrian afternoon activity, always telling me I was lowering myself to such tedium. But was I supposed to sit home and read and needlepoint? I could not support such a stagnant life.
And so that was why I stood in Mrs. Borden’s kitchen, scrubbing a pot. I blew a wayward curl off my face, but it clung to the sweat on my brow. Just delivering her third child, she was in bed recovering with two young ones climbing over her and the newborn while her husband went to work in the cotton fields.
As I moved on to clean the previous night’s dinner dishes, she called from the bedroom. “It will be your turn soon and I will come and help you.”
I paused in my scrubbing and looked down at my flat stomach. No, there would be no turn for me. No children; John was a very independent sort, and expected me to be as well. I knew when I married him that he wanted a helpmeet, not a coddler. I’d been well and fine with that, for I’d been raised by stern parents who did not dote. I knew no other way. I would have been unaccustomed to a man who hugged and lavished me with affection.
But in the past five years, I’d grown to change my mind. Watching other couples who were blatantly in love—like the Bordens—proved that I had missed something, and would never see it in my own union. Without children to tend, my life was empty. I was empty. To John, I was officially barren. Officially not a true wife, for I could not fulfill the one duty that he could not accomplish on his own.
And so, forlorn and overheated, I returned home, forgoing any other afternoon visits. Closing the front door behind me, I noticed that John’s office door was open. Odd, for he never appeared before five. As I removed my hat and placed it on the table beside the door, I heard voices from upstairs. Murmuring, then a sigh. A woman’s cry.
I glanced up as if I could see through the ceiling. I knew what it was. Who it was. At least I knew it was John and a woman. A rhythmic thumping followed. They were fucking. In my bed. John barely touched me, so I knew he took his needs to someone else. A brothel or a widow, someone who he felt worthy of his desires. But he’d never slaked these needs in our own home. While I doubted he loved me, he respected me enough to keep his women separate from me. Until now.
“Yes! Right there. Harder.”
My eyes widened at the carnality of the woman’s words, the desperate tone. While angry he would flaunt his behavior in such a way, I was also curious. Curious as to what John did to make her so satisfied. I’d never cried out like that before. Ever.
I tiptoed up the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky fourth step. The bedroom door was closed, so I slipped into the other bedroom that had an adjoining door. Meant for a nursery, it sat unused. But I knew the door was open about a foot to allow for air to circulate and could easily watch. And that was where I stood, behind the connecting door, and observed my husband in bed with a woman. I did not recognize her, for her pale hair was unbound and covered her face. She was also naked, on her hands and knees with her wrists restrained and tied to the metal scrollwork of the headboard with my dressing gown tie. The garment itself lay forgotten on the floor beside the heap of their discarded clothing.
John was behind her, naked too, and fucking her. His hands gripped her hips as he took her forcefully, the sound of his hips slapping against her upturned bottom filled the air.
“Is that hard enough?” he growled, the muscles in his neck corded and tense.
She tossed her head and her grip turned white on the bed rails. Her breasts, which were very large, swung with each thrust. It was carnal and dark and decadent and I’d never seen John like this. He was lost to desire, lost to the power he had over the woman. Never so… overcome by his baser needs. Whenever he took me, he was quiet and passive, his hips shifting enough for his cock to move in and out for him to release his seed.
He smacked her bottom, the crack of it making her cry out. She groaned, but it was not in pain. “You’re such a slut, letting me take you like this. You need it, don’t you? Your husband thinks it’s hysteria that makes you a frustrated wife, but you’re just a whore that needs a big cock.”
“Yes!” she cried again. This was what I was supposed to look like while being fucked? Wild and wanton and in the throes of pleasure so intense I loved having my bottom smacked?
I’d never heard him speak in such a way before, his words so blunt and cruel. His voice was rough-edged, not the flat, even tone to which I was accustomed. He’d never spoken to me in such a fashion, never gripped me with such intent, never fucked me that way either. I hadn’t even known you could.
But I was not like this woman. Her figure was unlike mine. She was tall and lean, with a very ample bosom and a small behind. I was petite and curvy, round hips and bottom and yet my breasts were much smaller. Had he chosen her to fuck because she was the antithesis of me? Did her appearance bring about this change in him? Was I that lacking? I had to assume the answer was yes.
John only took me at night when it was dark, the soft light of the lantern beside the bed casting a soft glow to the room. There was no talking. He just pressed me onto my back, worked my nightgown up as he spread my legs and pushed inside me without any preamble. He did breathe hard, but only when he spent his seed, the exertion from it mild in comparison to the vigor he applied now. He never perspired, never groaned. When done, he’d tug my nightgown back down, pull the covers over me and roll over onto his side to sleep. I would be sore and unfulfilled, seed sticky on my thighs and the bed beneath me.
This woman, she was not unfulfilled. The way she shifted and circled her hips, the way her skin glowed with a sheen of perspiration, the way she was panting and chanting yes, yes, yes over and over again, it was quite obvious that she was enjoying herself. I’d never enjoyed myself with John, never felt the same abandon, the obvious desire this woman did at my husband’s hands, or cock. The way she moaned her release, her body tensing even as John continued to pound into her, I knew now I’d never come before.
I was more upset at being cheated of this kind of deep and dark—and pleasurable—connection between two people than the fact that my husband was sharing it with someone else. I’d known of his philandering for some time, but not who he did it with, or where. I’d certainly not expected this.
I wanted this. I wanted someone to tangle their fingers in my hair and yank my head back. I wanted someone to take me hard from behind. I wanted a man’s handprint to be a bright pink on my bottom. I wanted passion.
The front door slammed, which made me jump.
“Marie!” A man’s voice bellowed from below.
John’s motions stilled, his cock deep inside the woman as she whipped her head toward the door. Her eyes widened in surprise and panic.
“It’s my husband!” she hissed, but couldn’t move, tied as she was to the bed and John behind her.
The man came up the steps, his heavy tread sounding as if he took them two at a time. The bedroom door swung so hard it slammed into the wall. I jumped and gasped, then bit my lip. A big man stood in the doorway. Dressed in a suit and tie, his hair was slicked back with sweat, beads of it dripping down his temples. He was breathing hard, as if he’d run all the way across town. He wasn’t a farmer or a laborer, but a well-to-do man. The cut of his clothes was telling, and John wouldn’t have taken a low-class mistress. But a married one? This man was scorned. The gun in his hands proved that and I bit my lip again to stifle the panic that wanted to slip out. Proved that he was a little insane, too. Mad with jealousy? I felt ridiculed and ashamed at being tossed aside. I could only imagine this man’s rage at being discovered a cuckold.
John pulled out of the woman—Marie—and turned on his knees toward the other man. His cock was red and swollen and shiny with the woman’s arousal. Marie was trapped by her wrists being tied, but she tipped onto her side and pulled her knees up to try to hide. She was like a child who covered their eyes and thought they could not be seen. Her motions did nothing to hide her nakedness or the view of her used pussy. Her crime, and John’s, was indisputable.
“Neil,” she cried, her eyes widening. John put his hands up as if to ward the man off, but he said nothing. What was there to say?
Neil narrowed his eyes as his chest heaved. There was no hesitation, no deliberation. He shot John square in the chest.
The sound reverberated in the room and I covered my mouth with my hand to cover my cry of surprise. Blood bloomed on his chest and John put his hands over the hole. He only looked down at the wound before he fell to his side, dead. I was not the doctor, but I knew a shot to the heart would make death instantaneous. Marie screamed and pleaded with her husband as she shuffled up onto her knees and tugged at the bonds that held her trapped. Instead of a playful game of bondage, it kept her right where Neil wanted her when he shot her, too. Once, then twice.
I barely breathed, my ears ringing from the report of the gun. I didn’t dare move a muscle, afraid he’d see me and come after me next. Neil stood and looked at the bodies for a few seconds. Maybe a minute. I had no idea of time. I just remained as still as possible behind the door, hoping he couldn’t hear the frantic beat of my heart. Surely, he’d shoot me too if I was discovered. While he had reason for his actions, it was still cold-blooded murder. He took a deep breath, then another, then spun on his heels, stomped down the steps and out the door. The quiet left in his wake was just as deafening as the gunshots.
My legs quivered, then folded. I slid down the wall to the floor, a crumpled, wilted heap. My hands shook and I tried to keep myself calm, to keep the excess energy from overwhelming me. That was where the sheriff and my neighbors found me a few minutes later, the dirty secrets of my marriage no longer hidden. Instead, they were naked and dead in my own bed.
CHAPTER TWO
Luke
Denver, Colorado
December 1885