To Be a Virtuous Wife, According to the Manual novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Dinner Is at Six

Rule 4 says greet him warmly; Dolores greets Hal at the kitchen table before supper, and the neighbor's knock brings news of an inspection tea.

Rule 4 in my mother's book says, "Have dinner ready, and greet him warmly."

It does not say what warm means.

By Wednesday I had a pot roast in the oven and a clean apron over my good green dress.

I had also read the chapter on greetings three times.

The book wants a wife to freshen her face, tidy her hair, and meet her husband at the door at the same minute every day.

It wants her to "make the evening his."

Rule 5 says to take off his shoes and let him rest.

Rule 6 says to "speak in a low, soft, pleasant voice."

It doesn't say a single word about what happens after the shoes.

Hal's lunch pail hit the porch at ten past four.

I was waiting inside the screen door with my hair combed and a cold glass of tea.

"Dolores?" He sniffed the air. "Is that roast?"

"It's the evening," I said, "and it's yours."

He looked at me over the rim of the glass.

He had grease on his cheek and a day of the plant in his shoulders.

"What's this?"

"Rule 22. Come and sit."

I led him by the hand to the kitchen table and pushed him into a chair.

Then I knelt down and untied his boots.

"You don't have to do that," he said, startled.

"It's Rule 5."

"I know the rules. You've been reading them to me through the bathroom door."

"Then you know I'm not allowed to stop."

He laughed and let me.

I took off one boot and then the other, and then his socks, which were gray and warm.

His feet were large and surprisingly handsome.

I pressed my thumbs into the arch of the left one and he leaned his head back and groaned at the ceiling.

"Rule 6," I said softly. "Let him rest."

"I'm resting."

"Not yet you aren't."

He opened one eye.

The kitchen was full of late October light. It came slanting through the yellow curtains and lay across the linoleum and across his knees.

The roast ticked in the oven. The clock said four twenty-two.

By my arithmetic, we had an hour and a half.

I stood up, wiped my hands on my apron, and sat down on his lap.

"Dolores." His arms went around me at once. "It's daytime."

"I noticed."

"Marlene's kitchen window is right there."

"Her curtains are shut. She's at the bakery until five."

"You checked."

"I'm a bookkeeper. I check."

He was laughing, but his hands had already found the ties of my apron and were working them loose.

I kissed him.

He tasted the long afternoon.

I opened the first button of his collar, and then the second.

He drew a long breath and tipped his head back so I could kiss his throat.

"Mrs. Rausch," he said unevenly. "You'll ruin your dress."

"I have another dress."

"You have three."

"Then I'll ruin one."

His hands slid up my back. Mine slid down his chest.

The chair creaked under us.

I got my skirt bunched up around my waist, stepped out of my underpants, and unfastened his work trousers to free his thick, hard cock.

A kitchen chair, I found out, is a surprisingly good place to be in charge.

I guided the head of his cock to my wet entrance and sank down over him in one slow, greedy slide.

He was buried to the hilt inside my pussy.

He let out a ragged groan, his head falling back.

"Hold still," I said, clenching around him.

He gripped my bare hips under my green skirt and held very still, his cock throbbing deep inside me.

"Look at me," I said.

He looked.

His eyes were bright and dazed, and the October sunshine lay across his face.

I knew I would remember that kitchen light for the rest of my life.

I rolled my hips, grinding my clit against the base of his shaft.

It was slow at first, a deep, wet rocking with my forehead against his.

Then it was not slow at all as I rose and dropped back down on his cock.

He stayed still as long as he could.

Then his calloused hands tightened on my ass and he drove up into me.

He fucked me hard enough that the chair began to knock against the table leg.

"The roast," he said hoarsely as his thumb found my swollen clit and rubbed in tight circles.

"The roast is fine."

"The neighbors."

"I told you, she's not home. Harder, Hal."

"Dolores... God..."

I felt the heat coil tight in my belly, quicker than the first night.

Now I knew exactly what his cock and his thumb were doing to me.

I bent and bit his earlobe as I rode him faster.

"Say it," I gasped.

"Say what?"

"Say you're comfortable."

"I'm," he groaned, thrusting up deep inside my wet heat, "the most comfortable man in the state of Ohio."

That undid me.

I felt my climax slam into me, and I held onto his broad shoulders.

My pussy clamped down hard around his shaft in one long, shaking wave.

My voice came out high and cracked as I came on his cock, not at all low, soft or pleasant.

He followed me a moment later with his face buried in my neck and my name in his mouth.

His arms nearly broke my ribs as he came hot and deep inside me.

We stayed there.

The clock ticked past five. The roast went on smelling like Sunday.

"The book," Hal said finally, in a muffled voice, "didn't mention the chair."

"It says to make the evening yours."

"It's four thirty-five."

"It starts when you come in."

He lifted his head and looked at me, flushed, wrecked, and entirely happy.

"I'm going to keep you forever," he said.

I climbed off his lap, set my skirt right, and tied my apron.

I basted the roast. I set the table.

We ate dinner at six exactly.

He ate three helpings and told me about a lathe that had caught fire in the shop.

Afterward I was rinsing the plates when someone knocked on the back door.

Marlene stood on the step in her bakery whites, with a dish in both hands and a very large smile.

"Don't look at me like that," she said. "I got home at five, and your window was open a crack."

I felt my face go up in flames.

"I brought a casserole," she said. "And news. Honey, sit down. Gertrude Strub's holding her tea at your house on November fifteenth."

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