Is There Another Woman?

His palm was rough like the quills of a porcupine but when he touched a woman, he knew how to retract those quills like a smart little cat.

She moved away from him. Gina was not satisfied knowing she was not going to be his bride. She was not satisfied knowing her children were not going to be from his loins.

They were not going to be strong like him or caring like him, for to her, no man compared to Richard.

'I see you do not want this.' He too moved away from her because he was getting frustrated.

'Is there another woman?' She looked at her feet while she spoke.

Gina knew Richard wasn't a loner. He had desires and if she could not satisfy them, then some other woman would.

It had never crossed her mind even once that Richard was seeing other women or that his attention was elsewhere, but she wanted to know that if Richard did not want her, then it was because he wanted nobody.

Richard immediately thought of Missy. He thought of the way her hips swayed when she carried drinks on a tray above her shoulder.

He thought of the carriage she had as she served customers in the tavern. He thought of how she never spoke until she was spoken to. In his eyes, she was the epitome of meekness.

'Gina, please, don't think I am seeing another. I do not have the time nor energy.' There was no way he was going to tell her about his love for Missy.

She looked up at him, her eyes glassy. A tear had gathered in them, she was expecting the worst, but his response calmed her.

She let out a loud sigh. She was happy that Richard was all hers. But alas, it was what he wanted her to believe, and she took his words as they were.

'Tell me what will win me your heart?' She held his apparel.

Her eyes shone with interest. What better way to woo a man than with what he wanted the most? And what better way to know what he wanted than by asking him? She was ready to do everything within her power to get him.

Richard looked at her with pity. He understood how she felt for he too had been told off in his past. It was hard for him to understand why some women found him tasteless but after getting rejected by one too many, he accepted his fate.

He accepted that not all women would like him and that made him wonder if Missy was going to be one of those women that did not like him.

His countless rejections had even driven him out of his fatherland, as he had been too ashamed to keep living amongst his people with the bad word that went around on his account.

'Gina, I just want to lay on this ground with you in my arms. This topic is irrelevant. Shall we proceed to why we are here?'

She slumped to the floor like a woman who found her sleeping child to be dead. She could not find the words to describe how she felt. She only wanted to be awoken from the nightmare Richard was putting her through.

'No. I must return to my father now. I need to give him his medicine.' She crawled closer to her clothes and began putting them on like a special child that could not walk nor stand.

'Gina, shall we end the evening this way? I have come far for this.' His voice was raised.

She remained silent.

'I shall have no more of this.' He walked briskly to the entrance and picked up his bag and bottle.

Richard did not look back at Gina once for the few minutes he stood by the door, waiting for his raging groin to settle. He left the shed without any more words.

Gina gathered the clothes she had yet to put on and hugged them tightly. She sat in the cold shed crying. She was going to lose Richard. In fact, she had lost him.

She went to her father that night in hopes that he was going to provide her with a task just so she could keep Richard away from her mind but that was not the case.

Her father announced to her that was leaving on a business trip, and he was going to be gone a long time.

He also told he understood how unfit it was to leave her by herself, so he made arrangements for her to live with his brother and his family.

'But father, can you not stay a while with me. Stay till the morning at least.' She pleaded.

She knew if he left, she was going to cry over Richard, she was going to think about all the Friday nights they had spent together and how his hands knew what part of her body to touch.

She was going to think about all the kisses she stole from him whenever he tried sneaking out of the shed on Saturday morning. She was going to think so much that her head would begin to hurt.

'Gina, I have to get the first ferry at dawn. I cannot do that if I am to travel from here. My brother, Benedict, lives close to the ferry terminal so we shall go there tonight.' Her father said.

Gina loved her father, but she was also very terrified of him. He was a strict man that hated small talk and his temper had worsened over the years. It was rumored that his bad temper sprang from his anger toward death.

He married a woman before Gina's mother, and she bore him two sons. The marriage was very happy until the woman and her sons died in a thunderstorm when the boat they were travelling on capsized.

After years of being lonely, Gina's mother, Myra, came along. She was a young and vibrant woman with skin as smooth as butter.

Myra was the envy of everyone when she first arrived in the town and Gina's father wasted no time acquiring her as his wife.

The marriage brought about two children but neither took the looks of Myra. While he wanted to keep trying for a child that would look just like Myra, she died the same way his first wife did.

Shortly after, Gina's brother too gave up the ghost. All those experiences took their toll on Gina's father and resulted in his semi-constant irritable mood.