6. Medical Straddling
Medical Straddling
Josephine
“Make your choice, sir.”
Father speaks calmly, as though he is offering a welcomed guest their pick of gin or port. It is cordial and yet, beneath the surface, I know that warm composure. I have experienced it more times than I should care to recount. Most memorably, when I refused the viscount’s proposal. More than once.
This warm composure is the quiet before the teapot starts screaming in a steamy rage.
Blaze. What kind of name is that? Nevermind, whatever he says next will determine if the teapot cools or steams in the immediate seconds to follow, and no amount of open windows in the drawing room could possibly rid the space of the suffocating feeling which closes in around me while I wait for the idiot to speak.
He does speak, and I decide scalding water to the ears would be better.
“That’s the weirdest damned thing I have ever heard in my life.” His words are not promising at all, and my eyes fall closed in dread. “And if I hadn’t watched more Pride and Prejudice than I care to admit, I would probably not even believe that this is a thing—weird and archaic, by the way.”
Blaze’s messy red hair bounces as his head turns to assess the room.
His panicking eyes lock with mine as I release a deep, shaky breath and something about the sincerity in his gaze makes me want to dive into the hearth and burn myself, as if I’m truly the plague society will believe I am should I actually be forced to marry him.
“Jo, darlin’, talk to your old pops here for me and explain! ”
“Jo?!” Georgia gasps, covering her mouth in shock, and I feel my insides knotting tighter than my laces have ever been. The idiot doesn’t even seem to realize the mistake he makes in addressing me as anything other than Miss Dashwood.
Stanley, who’d been hovering in the shadows of the drawing room and indulging in a long, slow puff of tobacco from his pipe, strides forward. “You impertinent scoundrel, you shall address my sister as a lady, or I will have you horsewhipped! Where does a fool of your poor breeding come from?!”
“See, I would tell you,” Blaze chuckles nervously, “but this hostile situation makes me wonder if personal details would make this better or worse…” His voice morphs into a breathy whimper as he blurts more nonsense.
“Can’t I just ‘to infinity and beyond!’ myself out of this?
” He pumps a fist skyward, and I shake my head with an exasperated sigh, pressing fingertips to my temples.
Death, be not proud. The famous words of John Donne, my favorite poet, ring in my mind as I imagine Blaze, the burly brute, dead by my father’s pistol.
Not that anything about him seems proud even now, but the poor fellow, who likely belongs in an insane asylum, will seem even less so when he’s shot down for violating social niceties worse than having a truly ugly sense of fashion.
Briefly, my mind wanders to the hideous sack he emerged from the pond wearing, and I say a prayer of thanks that I was able to clothe him more appropriately.
Heavens forbid he had shown up here clad in one sock.
Covered in roosters, nonetheless.
Then again, him having kept that atrocious sock and ridiculous sack on would’ve avoided this whole debacle to begin with.
I am never being charitable again. Ever.
“You are rude and insufferable,” my mother cries, rising from her chair to stand next to Grandmother, who now stares stoically out a window with quivering lips. I can not tell if it is to refrain from tears or laughter. Knowing her, the latter is more probable.
Regardless, I realize I have missed Blaze rambling on the topic of me straddling him and how it was more of a medical experience than a sexual one.
I choke on air.
My brothers gasp.
Georgia runs from the room entirely.
The tension is shifting from shocked to disgusted quicker than marriage-minded mothers race their daughters towards matrimony. I watch with sinking disbelief as all but my father turn their backs, not knowing how to even look at me.
“Will you marry her?” Father shouts now, slamming an empty crystal glass onto an end table, nearly tipping the entire thing over.
I imagine the sturdy oak tabletop crushing father’s toe, distracting him long enough for me to run away and ask the nearest children’s hostel what their age minimums are. Alas, I am certain orphanages and bachelors are alike in their aversion to twenty-six-year-old women seeking asylum.
I step forward now, courage seeming to be the only option as it appears my fellow offender is fresh out of stupid things to say. His face is locked in a dumb expression, and I actually wonder for a moment if nothing is occurring in the brain behind his eyes.
“Father!” I plead, closing the space between us to grip the silk of his vest. “You must believe me! T’was only a misunderstanding!
The poor fool was drenched and in some disoriented stupor!
I was merely trying to help! I truly believe if I had left him, he might’ve staggered back into the pond and drowned. ”
“Almost drowning once is enough for me, actually,” the poor fool in question mutters, seemingly to himself.
My words do nothing but fuel my father’s fire.
“So, you choose to warm him with your own body! In a building full of more decent options? Have we not raised you better than to squander your virtue?!” He sucks in an angry breath.
“I have turned a blind eye to your business endeavors. I have indulged your whims of being unwed and such—but an unmarried tradeswoman whore will not be suffered!” Father bellows now, shoving me aside as though I am a misbehaving dog.
I stumble over my skirts, collapsing in a heap on the cushioned chair, still warm from where my mother previously sat, and a burning heat rises in my cheeks.
Not sorrow.
Not embarrassment.
Anger.
“Fine, then!” I hiss indignantly, pushing off the couch to stare at his back while he moves menacingly close to Blaze.
“Cast me aside, marry me off to this stranger! And don’t count on seeing me again!
I may not be a daughter you are proud of, but I have always been a woman of honor, and that sentiment holds true now, whether you believe me or not. ”
At this, Blaze performs some strange hop to the side, dodging my father and tiptoeing a few steps closer to me. Surrounded by my entire family, he has the audacity to clear his throat, lean in to place a hand on my arm, and then whisper.
Not helping our case any.
“Listen,” he stumbles over his words. “You, uh, yeah, you seem nice and all. And you’re hot for a woman wearing enough fabric to clothe all of the world’s orphans.
Thanks for trying to save me from freezing my huevos off—I’m rather attached to those things.
But Jo…between bibbidi-bobbity-bo-ing myself home and then making sure Carter doesn’t sink the damn boat before she docks…
I don’t exactly have time to marry you. I’m gonna need my mom and her wacky-ass plants to get over this mindfuck—I need to go home.
” He winces, his face stretching into the most awkward grimace I have ever seen before he rolls onto his heels, shoves his hands in his pockets, and says, “On second thought, drowning doesn’t sound that bad right about now.
What’re the chances of me just walking out of here and jumping back into that delightful pond? ”