Kathleen Valentine Read Online Free PDF

just about the same amount of pay as a rifle like mine. Asa liked that idea just fine.

Every morning at the crack of dawn I’d hear his whistling as he come walking up our road. He had this cute, bouncy way of walking and he wore his black hat pulled down low over his eyes. When he grinned his teeth was whiter than Mama’s fresh laundered sheets flapping in the summer breezes. Asa whistled a lot while he worked—songs I didn’t know. I imagined they were what cowboys whistled to their horses late nights out in the Palo Duro Canyon trying to protect themselves from red wolves or the restless spirits of murdered Apaches. The veins along his forearms were thick and stood out like a map of the Guadalupe River. He had a rich, thick West Texas drawl—not like the nasal twang of the boys here in the hill country. Oh, and how he could look you over!

I’d stand by the kitchen window watching him till Mama came looking for me scolding like an old brood hen.

I told him I was seventeen. Either he believed me or he didn’t care. Sure didn’t take me long to get his attention though. I knew I was cute and he had that eye—that eye some men have that twinkles when he looks at you so’s you can’t even pretend you’re not thinking what you’ve been thinking right along.

The first time he kissed me he put his hand up under my skirt and squeezed my bottom. Lord, I nearly fainted right there in the dust. We was in back of my Daddy’s tool shed on a scorcher of a July afternoon. I can still hear the buzzing of the flies in the quiet and the wet pressure of his dense body pushing against mine. I brought him a cool glass of iced tea and he drank it straight down in one long swallow letting the icy liquid roll down over his chin. Then he backed me up against the toolshed and covered my mouth with his sugary, lemon-flavored one. And his hands... they were every place they had no business being. I tried for about half a minute to push him away—didn’t fool him one bit. He just laughed at me.

"You’re likin me, aren’t you?" he said, his hand sliding down under the waist of my undies.

"You’re horrible," I said slapping at him. But he just laughed. He always laughed.

From that moment on I was his—body and soul. He got to know every inch of me that summer but I was no fool. I knew when to stop him. By the time September came he was crazy to marry me. And I was crazy to let him.

My Mama and Daddy would have liked to kill us both! I was too young, they said, and he was a good-for-nothin. We didn’t care. We were so much in love. Nowadays folks would say we was just in heat. Girls today know everything. All I knew was what Asa taught me but he taught me plenty. Oh, I do remember it all.

Growing up in the Texas hill country when I did you didn’t learn much of anything about sex. When you were fixing to be married your mama sat you down and explained your wifely duties to you. My Mama said a good wife obliged her husband. She said to just close your eyes and let him have his manly ways and think about when you had babies. She said once he got you with a couple children if you was lucky you’d both be so busy there wouldn’t be no more time for that foolishness. I prayed she was wrong—cause I loved every single thing Asa did to me. Why, my Mama would die of shame if she knew the things Asa taught me—but that was after we was married. I made sure of that.

We got married on the autumn equinox when the sky was brittle cool and the smell of fresh cut hay filled the air. Mama and Daddy didn’t have much to say—mostly they was just glad I wasn’t showing a baby. They didn’t know how smart I’d been.

There was a party and dancing. Mama made half a dozen sweet potato pies and Daddy brought out some of his good hard cider. But me and Asa didn’t care. We just wanted it to be over so we could go to our little house tucked away in the woods. We just wanted to toss aside the new white and blue bridal quilt on our bed and