“But…” I stopped. Did he think someone in the church was listening? If so they’d have heard the whole wedding service and would surely be on their way to pick up Bill.
Mr. Novak waved his hand. “Go on, then. Get him back to work, before someone comes looking for you.”
We thanked him hastily and headed toward the door. I looked for the priest to thank him too, but he was nowhere to be seen.
I pulled my coat back over my dress as Bill said good-bye to Harry. I watched as they shook hands, and then Bill pulled Harry to him in a fierce hug. I hadn’t thought how it would be for Harry without the friend who’d been with him through the worst possible experiences, even facing a firing squad together. They hadn’t been separated for five long years.
“Good luck, mate,” said Harry in a strangled voice.
Bill released him, and I could see the tears in his eyes. “I’ll find you when we get home.”
Harry gave him a play punch on his arm. “You’d bloody better.” And he turned away.
The plan was for Harry to go back to the field and say he’d had his tooth removed, but the dentist needed to keep Bill overnight as had a nasty abscess and had fainted after his tooth was pulled. Later, when they discovered Bill was missing, Harry would say he intended to head north to the resistance, when actually we would be heading due west.
I shook his hand and thanked him, and we parted company, Harry to the field and Bill and I back to my house. Bill turned as we rounded the corner, but Harry was already out of sight.
Bill chattered all the way back, recounting moments from the service as if I hadn’t been there, and I slowly realized he was as nervous as I was about what would happen next.
“And you’ve got it just right,” he said. “You’re supposed to have something borrowed, something blue, something old and something new!”
“My dress blue,” I agreed. “My grandmother ring old, and borrowed.”
“Two for one!” he laughed.
I tried to think what I had that was new. My newest thing was my underclothes, but I was too shy to say that word to him.
“New?” I repeated as if it was a puzzle that must be solved or our whole marriage would be doomed to failure.
“It’s me!” he exclaimed with delight. “I’m new! I’m your new husband!”
We looked at each other as if neither of us could believe our luck.
Back at the house, I pulled the kitchen door shut behind us and locked the bolts top and bottom, and then Bill was kissing me, pressed hard up against me, until I could hardly breathe.
“Wait,” I said, pushing him away. He perched on the edge of the table to catch his breath and watched me opening the larder for the mug of plum brandy.
“You’re so beautiful,” he groaned. “I can’t wait a moment longer.”
But I poured the brandy into two big glasses, and we clicked them together.
“Here’s to us,” said Bill, “the bride and groom.”
“To us.” I said. “Na zdraví!”
“Na zdraví!” he repeated badly, and dashed off his glass in one swig, which made him cough.
“Firewater!” he choked, and I laughed at him, sipping my glass more slowly and leading him by the hand from the kitchen and up the stairs to my bedroom.
I pulled the curtains, wishing it was darker, and he began to kiss me again. The plum brandy had gone to my head, and I felt dizzy and wet between my legs. Bill was trembling so much, I had to help him unbutton my dress. I dropped it down onto the floor and stepped out of it in my underclothes. He held me at arm’s length and looked at me in my underwear and then placed something from his pocket on the bedside table. I knew this must be a Johnny, because he’d told me we must use one so I didn’t get pregnant. I hoped it wasn’t such a sin in wartime.
And then we were kissing and touching everywhere, like in the barn or the woods, but not like, because now we took off each other’s remaining clothes one by one until we were both quite naked and I caught sight of his thing standing up at attention. He seemed to be quite proud of it. I hoped he liked my body more than I liked that. He stood me away from him and looked greedily at me, at my breasts and my triangle of hair, until I wanted to cover myself. I thought how long it had been since he’d seen a naked woman—even a picture of one—and tried not to wonder who the last one was.
“Perfect,” he breathed, and lowered me onto my narrow childhood bed, lying half beside me and half on me, skin against skin for the whole length of our bodies. The wickedness of this, in my parents’ house, in my girlhood bed, was utterly thrilling. He turned away to do something secret with Johnny and then lifted me on top of him. There was a pushing sensation, and then a sliding, and we were joined completely, but then he stopped moving, and it all seemed to be over. I wasn’t sure what had happened, and if that was how it was meant to be, but he looked humiliated, and I guessed there should be something more.
“I’m so sorry. It’ll be better next time, I promise. You were just too much for me.”
“Everything beautiful,” I said. “You beautiful. I love you.”
He slid a finger between my legs—to make it better, he said—but I stopped him. It was enough that we were properly married.
So he wrapped me in his arms and legs, kissing my forehead, and I lay there, wanting more and more of this closeness, and wanting never to move again, until my skin began to cool, and I felt goose bumps down my flank.
When I went to the bathroom, there was blood down my inner thighs, and I exalted in it because it meant I was truly married; I was Bill’s wife, till death do us part. I wondered if I should take my sanitary belt from its hiding place in my kit bag, but as I cleaned myself, the blood was stopping already.
I came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, and Bill kissed me. His thing now bounced limply against his thigh, and I liked it better like this. But now there was time for me to take in his desperate thinness. His arms and legs were muscled, but thin as sticks. I could see all his ribs, and when he turned, he had no bottom. It twisted my insides with fear. What was I doing if his captivity had brought him to this? This was not a game; it was serious. I must have a chance to fight in the war, which had done this to him. And we must never get caught. He grinned at me, and I banished the thought. There was a little blood and wetness on my quilt. I thought I must wash that before we left the house.
• • •
I dressed in my brother’s long underwear and was putting my arm into my great-aunt’s bust-flattening corset when Bill came back into the bedroom with a small towel around his waist. My stomach contracted with lust at his smooth white body. He was looking at me the same way, and I automatically crossed my arms over my breasts. Bill took them down gently and kissed one breast and then the other, and I could feel his thing hardening again. So soon? I thought. There was so much I didn’t know. But he didn’t try to do it again, just helped me wrap the corset around me and lifted my arm to tighten the lacing down the side.
“I’m sorry you have to squash them like this,” he said, placing a hand on my chest.
I had to concentrate, or I would be begging him to make me a wife again.
“Tighter,” I said. He tugged at the laces and the bandeau squashed me flat.