Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

straight to Eula’s chest. She let her tight grip on the chemise loosen. Her eyes closed as Alex slipped the garment over her head. Her hands dropped to her side, not bothering to cover the breasts she always tried to hide from him because they hung flat like empty socks laid over darning balls. How could she have let herself pay mind to the silly prattlings of her brother’s wife? The real problem lay with Ben Roy all along.
    Alex ran his hands the short distance from her belly to her breasts. A breath came in and she held it as his hands worked her drooping bosom up her chest to where it used to blossom.
    The heat coming from his body as he leaned in and parted her lips with his mouth set up a sweat all over her own body. Something foreign found its way into her mouth. Was it his tongue? She wasn’t sure if he was searching for hers or not, but she let him find it. He pressed her bunched up breasts against his rough cotton work shirt as his tongue encircled hers. Before she could will it back, her tongue pressed into his.
    She let her arms slowly reach around his back. Alex kissed and released her lips. She flickered open her eyes just as his flushed face drifted to the windowpane.
    “I’m glad it was you.” Alex’s voice carried the husky sound of a man struggling for breath. “You and not Bessie.” He moved to take off his shirt and summer drawers.
    Eula chanced a look at his manhood. It had made a full rise.
    “What?” She managed to get out the word. She saw her reflection in Alex’s eyes. Did he really want her like a man hankers after a woman? The calendar on the pantry door conjured up in her head. Tonight was Tuesday.
    “I could of been like Wiley George. Worse.” Alex leaned toward her again and kissed her on the cheek.
    “You’re the best wife I could of found. I’m not a man born with good luck. Without you, I reckon I would of lost this farm.” Alex’s hand squeezed her breast.
    She sucked in her upper lip. Alex was saying things to her that he’d never said before. Though she’d never known her husband to be a drinking man, did his words come from the liquor served at Bobby Lee’s? Was that how Ben Roy did it…got her husband drunk?
    “No such thing. I just always want to be a help to you because I…”
    Eula had loved Alex for sure since right after the baby, but she had never said the words. And Alex had never said them to her. Was he trying to say them now? His eyes caught hers again.
    “It was a blessin’ that Bessie was taken when I finally came callin’. She was pretty, but pretty goes away and a man’s left with nothin’.” He slid his hands around her hips to the place where her thick thighs came together.
    Alex let his fingers stroke midway between knee and her triangle. Eula grabbed another gulp of air. With the pleasure feeling spreading between her legs, she looked at Alex as his eyes fixed on the windowpane.
    “Every man in Lawnover was wantin’ Bessie. I don’t fault you for that.” She let out a sigh as her legs spread open just enough to still remain a lady. How silly she’d been.
    Alex’s hands moved between her thighs. “It wasn’t much I done to get you, but I’m thankful you’re my wife.” His fingers played in her triangle.
    Eula bent her knees. The muscles in her thighs jerked. She fought to press her hips into the mattress to stop her legs from throwing themselves wide open. She battled the urge to lift her arms to his shoulders and pull him down on top of her. Scattered bits of pictures jumped into her mind, and right out, again. Liquor, money troubles, swollen-bellied colored women, the lying lips of sister-in-law Belle, Alex’s love for her finally finding words, spun around in her head.
    Eula arched her body into Alex, allowing her legs to gap a little more than was proper for a lady. She sniffed to catch the smell of Bobby Lee’s home brew. She wanted to swim in Alex’s embrace, answer his exploring fingers, sweep his ears with words of her love, but if he was a little bit drunk, he would hate her in the morning for behaving like a roadhouse tart.
    “Alex, I try to be the wife you deserve because I know I haven’t served you as well as I ought.” She grunted as Alex’s finger slid all the way inside her triangle. He had never touched her like that in all their years together.
    “Mmm” was all she heard from him.
    “A good wife…ooh…a good woman…my Lord…would give you babies…oh, my Jesus…I…”
    “No. No talk