This scene appears near the beginning of my current novel, as yet without a title. The two main characters are Dan Stark and his common-law wife, Martha McDowell, and the scene is written from Martha’s point of view. In the previous scene, Dan has protected Martha from a gang of drunks, but this being 1864, their respect for women has held them back from the sort of violence too common in cities now. Both Dan and Martha have been shaken by the encounter, however, and when he returns from taking his hired horse to the livery, and takes off his hat, Martha notices that blood from a cut above his ear has stained his coat and shirt. After dealing with the cut, this is what happens. (Martha speaks first.)
***
“You take off those bloody clothes so I can get them soaking in cold water.”
“All right.” He dropped the bar on the front door, which she thought was odd, it being still early in the afternoon.
She thought he’d retreat into the bedroom, but he stripped buck naked right there between the stove and the hamper while she watched, a mischief shining in his eyes though his fingers were unsteady among the buttons. Her face burned. She put her cold hands to her cheeks, and he stood there laughing inside himself, flat belly going in and out, his body saying plain what he wanted. She’d never seen him altogether this way, in the light, and a fine figure of a man he was, strong and lean-hipped, and nothing coarse about him.
Knowing she should cover her eyes, her hands stayed fastened to her cheeks as her gaze was to him while he took the few steps toward her, and pulled her hands down, her skirts up. It wasn’t right, she told herself, even with them being man and wife – only they weren’t really, and couldn’t be, but she wasn’t saying no to him, she was saying yes even though here they were in daylight, and surely this was something done between bedclothes, seemly, in the dark – while she helped him find the convenience in the way women’s drawers were made. He boosted her up to partly sit on the table –“We don’t want to hurt your back,” he said – and she straddled him so he could reach her better. She thought again how different he come to her than McDowell had always done, how taking him in was no hurt, but then thought left her, while she seized his backsides, their bunch and pull, was caught up riding double with him, one ear to his heart hearing the thrust and leap and gallop of it like her own, and in her other ear his breath a rasp and pull. Afterwards, they clung to each other in the stove’s warmth, and she almost said to him that nothing had ever been like this, never with Sam, this was how it should be between husband and wife, only they weren’t, no matter what he’d told Slade, and couldn’t be until they knew where Sam was. He left her slowly, stood her on her feet and kissed her.
“My heart,” he said, “my wife.”
“Only I’m not, not in the eyes of the Lord.” She hadn’t meant to say it out like that, and she was scared of how bitter she sounded.
He held her away from him, his hands gripping her shoulders. “Look at me. We are as married as we can be. If there were a minister here, and if you were widowed or divorced, I would ask you to stand up with me before him and the world. But as none of that is true, you and I have to do the best we can. We are married in the common law, and in the sight of the world, and the Lord knows we have no momentary feeling for each other. That will have to satisfy Him.”
She doubted it did, and it did not satisfy her, but because there was only one answer she could make, loving him as she did, she reached up to kiss him, her hands on his chest, when he pulled her close, and she felt another question that soon, lacking the words to say what she felt, her body answered.
***
This is the opening scene in the subplot, the love between Dan and Martha, that contrasts with what Dan is forced to do as the drunken gang escalate their behavior toward violence. Martha’s memory of her abusive, alcoholic, first husband foreshadows later plot developments. It also, I hope, encourages readers to turn the page.
I realize the metaphor of riding double is an echo of bad jokes about sex, but in the previous scene, Martha and Dan rode double on the hired horse away from the drunken riders who threatened them, so it brings into the subplot the danger they escaped. (Being a draft, it may not stand this way in the final version.) I could, of course, write their love without the sex, but between these two characters the physical attraction is very strong, and is part of what holds them together despite misunderstandings.
As always, I’ll be interested in your take on this scene. Do you think it works? Does it do what I intend it to do? Thank you for your thoughts and comments. It’s good to be back!
Well, fiddlesticks. I should be more attentive. Here’s the link to Cowgirl Up!
Thank you! I’m looking forward to taking a look!
Carol
I’ve been popping in and out all these months, enjoying your blog tremendously while I just have kept on writing…and writing…and…
Now, I’m to the point where I’m starting to think about writing too – what works, and what doesn’t. I have to say I found “buck naked” a bit of a jolt up above. It’s not that it’s temporally out of place (as I understand it, the term developed during Colonial times) but this is such a lambent, poetic passage that I’m not sure the phrase fits.
It passage really is well done, without an ounce of sentimentality. Strangely, it reminds me of the great scene in The King’s Speech where George VI let’s loose with his little “f-word” litany. It’s not something I’d be comfortable with generally, but it context it works perfectly.
Also, I don’t like dropping links in others’ blogs but I couldn’t find the contact form. I thought you’d get a kick out of my first venture into “western writing” – not to mention the photo of cowgirl me at about age six or so.
Your site really is valuable to me – and has become moreso as I’ve begun to move toward larger pieces and more complete “stories”.
Hi, Varnishgal,
Thank you! I’m pleased that the blog has helped you. You’ve helped me, too, with your comment on “buck naked.” I have to say you’re spot on. And maybe that’s what Cyndi was driving at, too, although I missed it in my reply to her.
Sometimes an anomaly like that is symptomatic of a POV problem. And in this case it might be, so I’ll think more about the scene from that aspect, although perhaps a strict adherence to POV isn’t as necessary as it might be.
You’ve given me something to consider, and I appreciate it!
Carol
First off, congrats on the post. It takes a lot of courage to post a sex scene, so I applaud you for that. I must admit that I was confused as to how they could be common-law married if she hadn’t ever seen him undressed (thinking common law means they’ve been together for years). Also, since it was a historical setting, the term “buck naked” jumped out at me as being modern.
I like the way you use horse-related terms like “gallop” when you refer to his heartbeat. Nice imagery there. I would cut down on the run-on sentences, as I felt they detracted from the scene.
I think you have a good start here and can build on it to stretch out the moment. You don’t have to be more graphic, but take us along for the ride a bit more. Let us into their psyches a little more so we understand what they are thinking and feeling during the encounter and why it is special.
Hope this feedback is helpful.
Cyndi
Thanks, Cyndi! I appreciate your feedback, as it’s always interesting to hear how my writing is received. I’ll double-check the term buck naked in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), and if it’s not appropriate, I’ll change it. When I was writing God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, an older writer told me that I couldn’t use “crime wave” because that term hadn’t come in until the 1920′s. She did me a huge favor by telling me that. Now I check nearly all expressions that deviate from standard English. I even looked up the “F” word and found it was in use at the beginning of English.
However, the run-on sentences won’t be changed because I need them for their rhythms and to express how a person’s thoughts flow when under stress, as Martha certainly is.
Regarding common-law marriages, I think the length of time is or might have been 7 years, but I don’t know what it was in 1864. Dan and Martha have been together about 2 weeks. When you read fiction and find a character saying something that you know to be untrue or mistaken, you have 3 options. He’s lying, he’s mistaken, or the author is. In this case, Dan wants to reassure Martha that his intentions are honorable. She believes him partly because he’s a lawyer, and partly because he has never disappointed her. Their union is a problem for her, though, until they are married by a minister — if they ever can be.
Hope this helps some of the confusion.
Carol
I absolutely love this scene – it’s so sweet and not really innocent, but “coy”, I guess. The emotional turmoil is just amazingly raw, and I think we really get a good sense of how they relate to each other and just how frightening that is for her.
The imagery is perfect, I think, and it does exactly what it needs to do in that we get a sense of just how deep their emotional bond already is. It’s amazing, Carol…excellent job.
Thank you, Jamie! I really appreciate your generous approval!
Carol