Copyright© 2004

Howard Anderson had never seen his wife in her full naked glory. They had been married two years and had grown quite fond of each other.

Many were the nights when Mrs. Anderson welcomed him into her embrace. His body rejoiced as he held her and entered into her warmth. He delighted in the feel of her lush curves beneath the flannel evening gown.

Still, he had thoughts. Dreadful, sinful thoughts.

What does she look like? What does she truly look like underneath? Underneath those fetching clothes she wears? Underneath the gown? I've been inside her, touched her as intimately as a man can touch a woman, possessed her... but I've never in actual fact seen her in the altogether. What do her bare breasts look like? Her deliciously rounded behind? Her... ?

Howard considered himself an enlightened man, almost a Free Thinker in many respects. He read all the journals that came by post from back East. He enthusiastically supported free trade, industrialization, and Progress. He was against imperialism and foreign adventures. He opposed slavery, though he thought the more radical of the abolitionists went a bit too far. He had even considered joining the Whigs. Things were moving mighty fast in this modern year of 1840, and a person had to stay on his toes to keep from being left behind.

He was a city boy, Howard was. Even so, he had found out about animals and their mating habits early on. At school he had traded naughty stories with his playmates. Once he had even purchased the services of a whore with money saved from his wage as an assistant clerk at the millinery shop on Main Street. It had been a sordid little affair -- over in a couple of minutes -- just a matter of sticking his organ into... And he had barely managed to catch a glimpse of her body. He still had only the vaguest notion of what a woman's body looked like, aside from her secret place.

It had to happen. Late one evening he was on his way to attend to a call of nature. He pulled open the door of the outhouse... and there she was. Sitting there was his naked wife. He just stood and gawked, openmouthed.

"Howard!"

He turned and fled.

It was ten after two by the pendulum clock in the parlor. He hadn't been up this late in years. Burning precious lamp oil, too. The words in the book on his lap were blurring. Were those blots on the pages from his tears?

There were soft footsteps behind him. He didn't turn around.

"Dear Howard. The bed is so cold... and I am so lonely. Please come."

He arose and let her lead him by the hand up the wooden stairs to the bedchamber. The full moon was shining through the glass window that he had installed at such great expense not long after they were married. Amanda was standing beside the maple four-poster bed. She had let her gown drop to the floor. Her naked limbs gleamed in the light of the moon. She was stunning in her beauty.

Later, as they lay side by side under the comforter, she nuzzled his face and kissed his nose. "My darling," she whispered, "I have wanted to show myself to you since the day we were wed. I was afraid. You might have thought me... indecent, even wanton."

He took her hand and and kissed it. "Wanton you may be, darling wife, but you are mine, and mine only. And I am only now discovering just how deeply I love you, Mrs. Anderson."

"And I you, Mr. Anderson. With all my heart and all my soul."

It was as if a dam had burst. In succeeding days, Amanda no longer felt shy about demonstrating her affections, and she even began hesitantly expressing carnal desires. Nightly they lay in each other's arms, flesh against naked flesh. And they partook of that flesh when the hunger overtook them, and it overtook them often.