The Lover: A Short Story by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Author:Silvia Moreno-Garcia [Moreno-Garcia, Silvia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2023-10-31T23:00:00+00:00

She agreed to meet him, partially because she was curious to find out if the stranger would still be there. She didn’t wish for a confrontation between the two men, but she wanted to see if the outsider would keep his promise and exit the hut upon the morning. It seemed that was the case, and he had not left a trace of himself behind. The book on the table was gone, and the fire was out.

No sooner had she walked in than Nathaniel opened the door. He immediately had her on the bed, tugging at her skirts.

“It’s wickedness,” she told him while he kissed her neck. “We should stop. You’re married to my sister.”

“I should not have married Alice. I had not felt like I had a home in such a long time, and you were all so kind, I did not wish to lose that. She made it clear if I didn’t wed her, I must leave. By God, Judith, I made a mistake, but I love you, not her. Alice and I are scarcely together, you know that.”

There was truth to that statement. Nathaniel was polite to his wife, but not particularly affectionate, and they had separate rooms. Alice and her first husband had also kept separate rooms, but it was because he snored. Nathaniel and Alice had not even honeymooned together, even though Alice had grumbled about this: she’d wanted to travel, to buy pretty trinkets at a seaside town.

Oh, Nathaniel was happy enough to sit at Alice’s table and to help in the shop. He seemed to enjoy his higher position in the village, where he was now a merchant instead of a common hunter. But he had never seemed enamored of Alice as Judith would have imagined a new husband would be. The townspeople said Alice had bought him. Perhaps she had.

“If I could pick again, I’d marry you,” he said.

The thought of Judith being preferred over her sister made her feel a little proud, even if she shouldn’t, just as she shouldn’t desire Nathaniel.

“It’s still a misdeed,” she muttered.

“We ought to run away together,” he said. “Alice will find another man, she’s young enough. She’ll do fine and we can begin anew, where no one knows us.”

“You’d do that?”

“Yes,” he said as his fingers skimmed her thighs and she arched her back, even as she tried to mumble about iniquity and depravity. But she’d loved him so much in secret and silence, and now he was there. “We’ll go, in the spring, with the thaw.”

A wolf was howling, braving the bitter cold outside. But it was not cold, not in her heart, her body aflame and her head filled with thoughts of all the places they might venture to. The city, south of the town, where they built great cathedrals and palaces, where the cold did not snap the bones. He slipped into her body, and she thought maybe there really were curses, and her curse was to want him like this, against all reason and decency.

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