King of Spades Read Free Page A

with it. She asked who the tintype was a picture of.
    â€œMy grandfather Worthington.”
    â€œHe looks distinguished.”
    â€œHe was. He was an earl.”
    â€œIn England?”
    â€œYes.”
    She noted an emblem in one corner. “And this?”
    â€œOur family coat of arms.”
    Kitty bent for a closer look, and so managed it that her wrapper parted, revealing a lovely apricot of a breast.
    Magnus could not resist a touch. And while Aunt Agnes partook of the blessed sacrament, the Lord’s Supper, in church, Magnus and Kitty partook of the blessed temptation, fornication, in bed.
    Neither regretted it. Both fell immediately and deeply in love. The delicate flower of pure passion replaced all former philandering on his part and sneaky fun on her part.
    She had no maidenhead. But Magnus was sure that no grown man had touched her there before. She had probably picked it apart herself.
    Kitty told him she was in a family way the same day Magnus graduated from medical school. It was early spring. They were even more in love than ever. He had heard of an excellent opening in a new town on the frontier, Sioux City, in western Iowa, and felt he should make his start there, where he could begin with a clean slate on all counts. She agreed it would be a good place to go to, and suggested they elope.
    Two days later, on a Sunday morning, they took the stage to Dubuque. From there they took the steamboat down theMississippi to St. Louis, then back up the Missouri to Sioux City.
    The captain on the first boat married them. The year was 1856. Magnus was twenty-one; Kitty was thirteen.
    Â 
    They lived in a back room, behind his office on Main Street in Sioux City.
    The first months they were as happy as a couple of sleek minks. He couldn’t get enough of her. He had to be touching her all the time, nipping her Indian-dented lips, shaping her apricot breasts, stroking her long slim feet. They made love most every night.
    He loved the scent of her. She’d found some puccoons growing wild on the prairies, and falling in love with them, decided she had to have their aroma around all year round. So she squeezed their orange blossoms until she got a drop of juice, then boiled their roots down to their essence, and made of the combination her personal perfume.
    About the fourth month of her term she began to initiate the lovemaking. This inflamed Magnus all the more. That he should be having fleshly communion with her thirteen-year-old body at same time that he loved her as the mother of their coming child made for madness. A master passion took hold of him. It seemed to release him at last from the lethargy of his sad youth.
    Â 
    They were lying together in their back room after the noon meal. He was about to go out on call.
    â€œAunt Agnes would never approve of this.” He kissed her on the nape of her neck. “Never, never.” He suckled the lobe of her ear.
    Kitty opened herself under him to hold him the more. “Why not?”
    â€œIndulging your husband’s base passions in the middle of your term … why, Kitten, you know that can be injurious to the child. Besides, it’s a sin to enjoy it.”
    â€œCan it?”
    Magnus went on imitating dear Aunt Agnes’ manner. “I am minded of what your own dear mother told me. My sister-in-law. That it put the stamp of a passional nature in you. Yes, Kitty, you were a honeypot when you were already a year old.”
    Kitty laughed. She kissed him. “My husband. My dear daddy husband.” She kissed him again. “I can’t help it, dear daddy husband, but I never did think that tubers were unsightly.”
    â€œAnd I never did think that a mighty and a pure love was but a delicate flower.” Magnus sighed luxuriously. “I like all of it. As well as the fruit of it.”
    They were desperately poor at first. In pay for his services they accepted chickens, cabbages, roasting ears of corn, pigs. They