Wrangled (9 page)

“Bullshit,” Charity said. It was so
comical! I couldn’t help but laugh. “Annalee, sex is one of the most beautiful
things in life when you have it for the right reasons. One of those reasons is
because it feels good, and you deserve to feel good. The other is to be close
to the one you love, and the third is to make babies. You read those books, and
then I want you to watch that DVD. It isn’t porn, but it shows some of the ways
people make love.”

“What’s porn?” I said.

“Oh for god’s sake,” she replied. I didn’t
know what to make of that. “Porn is short for pornography. It means pictures
and videos of people fucking.”

I gasped. I knew that word, but I didn’t
think it ought to be coming out of Charity’s mouth.

“Annalee, close your mouth, you’re going to
catch a fly. It’s just a word. It can be a crude word, or it can be an intimate
word, and I can tell you know what it means. Grow up.”

Tears started leaking out of my eyes, then.
There was so much I didn’t know. How would I ever fit in if I left the ranch? I
asked Charity that question.

She looked kinder then, like she was sorry
she’d snapped at me. “I’m sorry, Annalee. I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at your
fucking ex-husband and his whole church. You deserved better.”

This time when she said that f-word, I
giggled a little. That might be fun to say sometime. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Yes, it
was fun to say!

“So, what’s the difference between this DVD
and porn, Charity?”

“Porn is for titillation. This is
educational.”

I didn’t know that big word, but I could
guess what it might mean. “So this DVD won’t titillation me?”

“Titillate. It might, but it’s not dirty.
Yeah, it probably will. I watched it to make sure it was what I wanted for you,
and it turned me on. That means the same thing as titillate.”

Now I was more confused than ever, so I
decided that I’d better stop asking questions before I didn’t know up from
down. “Okay, Charity. Thank you for getting these. I’ll watch the DVD tonight.”

“You’re going to want to wait until your
babies are in bed asleep,” she warned me.

I started reading the books right away, and
I couldn’t believe people did all that together. When Celeste came in and
caught me reading, I turned bright red and hid the book behind my back.

“What’s that, Annalee.”

“Never you mind, Celeste. It’s for me. When
you’re older, I’ll let you look at it.”

“Don’t be a pill, Annalee. What’s it about?
Is it about sex?”

“How’d you know that?” I accused.

“That’s the only thing I could think of
that would get you so twitter pated. Come on, let me see.”

“No, not ‘til you’re eighteen. You’ve only
got a couple of months to wait.”

You’d never know she had a child of her
own, the way she reacted to that. She stuck out her tongue at me and ran off,
singing “Anna and Cody, sittin’ in a tree, K- I -S -S -I -N -G.” No, she was
definitely not mature enough to handle this book. I went back to reading
avidly.

That night, after I got the kids to sleep
and after I watched Cody train Abo and then kissed him for awhile in the barn,
I went into my room and locked the door, turned the sound down low so all I
heard was a whisper of the narrator who told what was happening. What I saw on
that DVD made me ache and throb in places I didn’t know I had. I couldn’t wait
to try some of that with Cody, if only he’d make a move to let me know he was
ready. In the meantime, I learned how to pleasure myself, from the books and
the DVD both.

Once the kids were asleep, I’d start by
remembering the kisses Cody gave me that night, and his hand brushing against
the side of my breast. I always wished he would push it up under my shirt and
squeeze my breast, but even though I invited him by pushing them forward, he
didn’t. I’d put the DVD in the player and try to do to myself what the man did
to the woman, as much as I could. I’d brush my own hands over my bare breasts,
then caress and squeeze them until the nipples felt like they did just before
my milk came down for Tali, kind of hungry to be sucked into the warmth of a mouth.
Then I’d twist and pull at them until they tingled and I ached for a man’s lips
and tongue on them, like in the DVD. That usually made something down between
my legs twitch, and I’d reach down to feel the folds and moisture there.

It was a source of wonder to me that I
never knew about all that down there before, not really, I mean. It’s not like
you can see it,  unless you get in front of a mirror, but I never thought to do
that. The first time I was with my husband, it surprised me that there was a space
he could put his hard penis in and it would fit, even though it burned and hurt
until I got used to it. But I still didn’t ever think about putting my fingers
in there to see what it felt like. Now I did, though. I put my fingers in to
feel the warm, squishy insides and paid attention to where else I was having
feelings. It was funny to feel my fingers with my insides, and my insides with
my fingers. Tingles and waves ran up my belly outside and in and made the
muscles squeeze my fingers. I pushed them in and out, and the tingles got
stronger.

Watching the DVD, I’d see where the man
parted the woman’s folds and found a little knob thing, called a clitoris
according to the narrator. She seemed to really like it when he stroked that,
so I tried it, and barely kept from yelling out and waking my kids. That was
like a bolt of lightning hit me right between my legs, especially when I
learned to bring some of the slickness from inside me to spread around. Now I
didn’t have enough hands, because I wanted one for each breast, to squeeze and
twist the nipples, and one to touch that little knob, and another one to push
inside of me.

I settled for pinching one nipple and then
the other, moving back and forth whenever one got numb and the other called for
some attention, while stroking the knob and circling it with my finger faster
and faster, dipping in for more slickness whenever I seemed to need it. I
forgot all about the DVD, focused entirely on myself. If the house had caught
fire, the babies and I would all have died because I didn’t know anything
except that drive to stroke harder and faster, until my body suddenly tensed
and some kind of electric shock ran through me. After that, I laid on the bed,
shaking and rocking back and forth, wishing for all I was worth that Cody’s
arms were around me. And then, I cried, that first time. I didn’t know then and
I still don’t know why it made me cry. It was just too much to take in, I
guess.

It took me quite a few tries to watch that
DVD all the way through, each time seeing something I had missed before when I
got too involved with my own pleasure to keep watching. Every night, I’d watch
Cody in the corral, work myself up by kissing him passionately in the barn, and
then rush back to my room to watch that DVD and find my bliss. The only thing I
hated was that it would have been so much better with Cody’s hands on me
instead of my own.

The other thing about not having a man to
do these things with was there were some things that the woman was doing to the
man that I couldn’t try. I just about died the first time I saw her bend down
and put her mouth on his penis. That was nasty, wasn’t it? But, from the look
on her face and the look on his, maybe there was more to it than met the eye. I
watched that part over and over until my mouth watered, wishing I had a chance
to do that for Cody and see his eyes roll back in his head like that and hear
him moan. I shivered a little, wondering if he would like it like the man in
the DVD, wondering what it tasted like, what it smelled like.

One night, I risked turning up the sound
enough so I could hear the people that were having sex, not just the narrator,
and hoped it wouldn’t wake the kids. That made a whole new experience in
watching it. I did it because the narrator said something about some people
finding sex was enhanced when they talked and used sex words while they had
sex. I guessed that enhanced meant made it better. I could remember my
ex-husband muttering some words when we were together, and I thought they
sounded like that f-word, but it just never seemed like he’d say those words,
even if we did sometimes hear them from the other men when they were working.

Now, I could hear the couple in the DVD
saying things like “I’m going to fuck you now,” and “Fuck, baby, that’s good,”
and “Suck me off, baby.” That was when she put her mouth on his penis, which
was beginning to be my favorite part of the DVD. Just hearing his low voice
kind of growling those things made me get wetter between my legs. I decided
that I was probably one of those people who found that made it better. But I
wouldn’t know for sure until I tried it for myself, with a man, not just by
myself.

I was getting closer to just coming out and
saying to Cody, please fuck me, but I hadn’t gathered the courage yet when he
had his accident, so I never got the chance. Now, giving him those sponge baths
after his accident was the closest I was going to get to sex with Cody for a
while, unless I could figure out how to do it without hurting his neck and leg.

~~~

I wasn
’t sure what
to think when Russ brought a red-headed girl to the ranch and said she’d be
staying with us a while and giving Cody his physical therapy. I wanted to
object, to say only I should touch him, but before I could get a chance, Russ
explained that Cody’s leg had to be pushed and pulled and exercised in special
ways so he could regain full use of it. Then I understood I was being selfish.
It was important for him, and he couldn’t help that Russ had brought a pretty
girl to do it. Still, it was hard to see.

For one thing, she didn’t care if the door
was closed or not. She’d just barge right in and interrupt whatever was going
on. One day I barely got him covered when she showed up too early, before I was
done with his bath. She laughed and winked at him, and said, “Darn, just missed
it.” Then she left but Cody got all tongue-tied and blushed as bad as me. She
was lucky I had to finish his bath, or I would have scratched her eyes out.

I tried to talk to Cody about how I felt
about her, but I kept thinking that I shouldn’t be that way. So I just kept my
mouth shut, even when she scolded me for being up in the bed with him.
Her
patient! He was my patient first, and he wanted me there. Didn’t he?

You could just about say I was up to my
neck in misery all between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Between not being
thankful for her being there and my constant need to touch him and have him
touch me but getting no privacy, nothing was going right. Every time I got to
bathe him, I’d run my eyes over his flat stomach and the muscles all round and
smooth over his chest and shoulders, and I’d get to see his cock, a word I’d
learned from my DVD, respond to my touch, but I couldn’t
have
him, not
like I wanted him. Sometimes it was too much to bear, and I’d go to my room and
cry. I started losing weight and getting paler every day, partly because it was
too cold to go out and get some sunshine, but mostly because I wanted to die,
being so close to him and yet so far.

So, it wasn’t surprising when things came
to a head at dinner one night. As usual, Jenny was winking and rolling her eyes
at any hand whose eye she could catch. That set my sisters on edge, because
some of those hands belonged to them, or so they wished. The air around the
table had closed in like a fog, when Jenny answered Russ’s question about
Cody’s condition and lit me on fire.

“He’s doing great, and just as sexy as
ever. I’d love to take him dancing when his leg’s better…I’d be the envy of
every girl in Rawlins.”

Charity’s eyes flew to mine and she widened
them to show me she didn’t know what to make of that. But I did. Jenny was
acting like she could move in on my man, and I’d had enough.

“I doubt he’d want to go dancing with a
cheap tramp like you, Jenny,” I said, as deliberately as I could. A ripple ran
around the table as my sisters tried to suppress nervous giggles, and the men
all started to look interested in what might happen next. Charity put her hand
over her mouth and I could have sworn she was laughing, but it was no laughing
matter.

I’ve heard tell you shouldn’t ever make a
redhead mad, that they have tempers like rabid dogs. I’d just broken that rule,
and Jenny did look like she might start foaming at the mouth any minute. But
she said, as calm as could be, “Oh, and you think he’d prefer the ex-whore of a
religious fanatic, and another man’s two bastards?”

There was a roaring in my ears and
everything turned red. I didn’t know who had told her our background, but
whoever it was was going to get killed next, unless it was Russ or Charity or
Cody. And they might not be totally safe. But first, I had a redheaded twat to
kill, another of my new words, and I was going to do it with my bare hands. I
stood up fast, knocking my chair over, and lunged for her across the table. My
sisters started shrieking and the men started yelling, some of them encouraging
me and some her, with Russ and Charity trying to put a stop to all of it.

Of course, Jenny dodged, but I was quicker,
and came around the table at her. I got a fistful of that red hair and pulled
it hard as I could, trying to yank it out by the roots. She was screeching and
trying to bite me, but I got a good punch in before strong arms came around me
and picked me up, feet kicking and arms flailing to hit her or whoever it was
that had me.