Read Flesh of My Flesh: Short Story for Free Online Page A

into it, everything that was common and hard about living in Colville seemed more evident to her whenever Sam was around. The very first time he came into the store and they got to talking, she’d wondered how anyone so open-minded would ever cope with the bull-headedness and rectitude of people here. When she’d started seeing him with Bernie, she’d said to Emma, “A racy girl like that will break his heart.”
    Her innocence! That’s what floors her now. “What if I don’t mind whether you respect me or not?” she said once.
    “I won’t respect myself,” he answered.
    “Then let’s elope.”
    “We said we’d wait until I visited my relatives.”
    “What if I tear all your clothes off?”
    “Let’s just wait.” (Moving her hand from his knee, coming to his feet.) “Okay, honey? I’m not cut out for this kind of thing.”
    That’s exactly how he put it—he wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing. In six months he thought he would be. Then there would be the months it took to recover. What he told her was that he wanted to visit his parents’ grave in Delaware, then look up some relatives he’d suddenly heard of, get to know them, invite them to the wedding, and after that he wanted to do some camping in Vermont on his own. He’d be gone three, four months, he said.
    But he misunderstood how complicated the operation would be. By the time he had the facts, and was therefore going on about delaying the wedding a few more months (he said his relatives might be away in the spring and it would be better to visit them in the summer), she was so sure that this was just him throwing up barriers between himself and his happiness, she wouldn’t listen. She covered his mouth with her hand.
    Sometimes she feels as if her hand is still there. Oh, they still
talk.
They tell each other about their day, that kind of thing. But whereas she used to tell him things she’d never imagined telling anyone else (even before they said they loved each other she admitted having faked her orgasms with John), now they talk as if their conversation will be played back in church. Neither of them goes near words like “orgasm” or “sex.” She can’t even say “love.” She can’t tell him that the ferret has gone into heat. She says, instead, “I’m going to have to get hold of Arnie,” and leaves it to him to remember that Arnie is the guy out on Highway 10 who has a breeding farm.
    She keeps wondering how long it can go on. The marriage, yes, but mostly how much longer they can keep up this uneasy peace. Then a letter arrives with a Boston postmark. She watches him read it. “Well?” she says from a state of calm that she can feel quickly giving way … to total rage or total apathy, she has no idea.
    “I guess this is it,” he says.
    “You’re not going to go ahead with it, are you?” she says.
    He looks up, surprised. “Well, yeah. Of course. I mean, I thought that’s what you’d want.”
    It’s rage. It shoots up inside her like a geyser. “What
I’d
want!” she cries. “Why would I want that?”
    He just looks at her.
    “What on earth do you think? That all this time I’ve been holding my breath for a penis?”
    He starts to speak but she cuts him off. “It won’t be real!”
    “It’ll be real. They’ll use my own skin and—”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, it makes me sick to think about it.”
    “It won’t ejaculate sperm—”
    “Shut your mouth!” She actually punches him.
    “But it’ll get erect,” he continues in the same instructive tone. “There’s a way to do that.”
    She collapses on the little stool where they put on their boots.
    “What if I lost a leg and got an artificial one?” he says. “Or ifI had a glass eye, or, I don’t know, a toupee, or I had a nose job? What about women who have breast implants?”
    She shakes her head.
    “What about fat people who used to be thin? What about Grace? You know what she said at the wedding?” His voice goes softer, more