Chapter 8: Embarrassed

It was really embarrassing. I stood in a large tin tub in front of Felicity Snyder's fireplace while Ivy, her slender, thirteen-year-old daughter, tenderly washed my bruised back, and I washed my scarred and swollen front including my insulted private parts which I valued greatly and feared for. My cock throbbbed like a broken tooth.

Susan watched from the kitchen table, sipping cider beside the other three children and their beautiful mother. Felicity was mixing up some sort of unguent. She claimed to be a "simpler" with good knowledge of herbal medicine. Ivy pored a bucket of water on my back and then stepped around and poured the rest over my chest and hips. He eyes never fell below my chest as she did her job, but there was a faint, knowing smile on her lips. I had been assured that since she had three brothers and had regularly bathed them since they were babies, my hairy nakedness would not bother her. It bothered me since there were now three handsome women in the room as well as three snickering boys.

"This is betony and salvia; I'm out of comfrey or I would have used that," Felicity Snyder told Susan as she ground dried leaves in her stone mortar. She had already squeezed something she called "Robert" on my cuts as well as Susan's collection of bloody lines and spots. "Now I'm adding woundwort, some call these 'lamb's ears.' This'll be ready soon."

"Anything I can do to help?" Susan asked, smiling at me as I dried myself with my back to all of them. She was still wearing the officer's frilly shirt and uniform britches. Lace hung over her stubby hands.

"I don't think so," Felicity said. "Children, get on your gloves and hats and go outside for a while. You can build a snow fort or watch the soldiers. Ivy, you are in charge, get your scarf and be sure to cover your hair."

I stepped out of the tub and sat at the table, cleaner than I had been in months and trying not to feel foolish. Susan looked at my scarred chest and swollen shoulders.

"You're just about black and blue everywhere," she said, rubbing my hairy arm in a friendly manner.

"Stand up," Felicity said to me, pushing the gooey mess she had made toward the end of the table. "Here Susan, you rub some of this on those bruises and cuts. I'll do his front and then we'll see to your stripes as well. Now, you be still, you big hulk. We're both widows, you know, and we are not surprised nor impressed by anything you have."

I felt Susan's hands on my back, stinging but soothing. "No, I didn't know that," I said after I remembered to breathe and processed what she had said, distracted by the feel of feminine hands and the increasing rows of fire lines across my body. I felt like a badly plowed field that someone was harrowing. "What happened to your husband, when?"