Because her mother had died when she was twelve, she’d learned about intimacy only from others who painted no consistent picture. Her older sister Collette had told her fascinating stories in coarse but alluring language of how mating between a man and woman occurred. With her family, Fancy had tended a ranch and watched horses and cattle mate. She had also seen her both her brothers, Amos and Jeremiah, nude as children, swimming in nearby Duck Creek. She had heard that boys’ small penises grew with age—and desire. Fancy knew how a male body fit into a female’s. How offspring were made. She understood the risqué words many, like Collette and her brothers, used when they joked about a man’s cock piercing a woman’s cunt. She had heard whispers from other women that the act might be boring or worse, violent. But what she felt now—this swing from euphoria to roaring need—astonished her. She thought him striking. She knew him protective. She saw his desire for her—and coveting his care of her, knowing she could not run from him, she surrendered to her fate.
