Alcestis by Katharine Beutner

his sight.”
    “It’s all right, Alcestis. If you watch the girls, I can do it. You mustn’t worry.” She reached out, rubbed her clammy palms up and down my arms. “We’ll have you out of here in a week. He’ll forget about it, you know he will.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I made him furious.”
    Phylomache smiled, lips curving in a line I had never seen. “He’ll forget,” she said. “No man wants to remember being bested by his daughter.” But the smile was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and she pulled away suddenly, dropping heavily onto the bed.
    “You all right?” I sat beside her, put a tentative hand on her knee.
    “Yes. I just feel sick. It’ll go away in a month or so, praise Demeter.”
    “You should rest.”
    “No, I can’t,” Phylomache said, but weakly as I stood and pulled a blanket over her. She settled beneath it with a pale smile and patted the edge of the bed. “Sit, sit again.”
    I sat, curling my hands in my lap.
    “You know—about men and women, don’t you? About the wedding night?”
    Anguished, I said, “Phylomache—”
    “Don’t make that face at me. Do you or don’t you?”
    “The servants talk of it all the time,” I said. “And I’ve seen the animals bred. I don’t need lessons, please.” Pisidice had tried to tell me of wedding nights too, and I had not let her. I remembered her dreamy tales of men when we were children, and Hippothoe’s grimaces in response.
    “Lessons,” Phylomache said, laughing again. “I’m not the one to ask. Pray to Aphrodite for that if you must. She’s the only woman I know who enjoys it.”
    “Some of the serving women do, I think.”
    “Oh, well, serving women. Alcestis! You’re marrying a king. You’ll be taking advice from the slaves next.” Phylomache shifted up onto one elbow, propping her cheek on her hand. “Don’t look so sour. It isn’t that awful. Just let him do what he wants as long as it doesn’t hurt too much. If you’re lucky you’ll conceive right away, and then you won’t have to worry about it for most of a year.”
    I flopped down and pushed my hot face into the musty mattress. “I’m not listening to you,” I said, my voice muffled, but I was listening, and I was shivering, and I was thinking of Admetus: just let him do what he wants. I’d always thought of marriage as a distant necessity, a blurry destiny, awaiting me as I grew, but I’d dreamed in ideal domestic terms: a few boy children to keep me safe, girls to love me, obedient servants, health, and quiet. I’d fantasized only of being out of my father’s house and mistress of my own.
    Phylomache petted my back as if I were one of her own daughters. “Hush, now,” she said. “Come, we’ll sort through your clothing. Call up one of the serving girls.”
    Within an hour she had me half buried beneath a pile of clothing and was chattering contentedly about how we would fit everything on the packhorses. I let her talk—once I was married, I would probably never hear her voice again—but I kept imagining my sisters’ voices murmuring beside me. Hippothoe tried to comfort me with calm words from her rough throat, saying, Admetus will treat you kindly, Alcestis. You’ve seen that he cares for you. He’ll honor you. It will be a good life . But she kept repeating herself, as if she could think of nothing else to say, and my imaginary Pisidice just crossed her arms and said: Now it’s your turn .

    FOR THE NEXT week everything made me think of my wedding: the weight of a child on my hip, the sway of my skirt around my ankles, the stroke of my hair over the bared skin of my back as I dressed. How would my husband’s hands feel on my flesh? I knew only the touch of sisters and servants and stepmothers. Would he touch like a woman did, gently and confidently, or like a man—like my father, with force just contained? What kind of touch did I want?
    By the sixth night I had tired myself out thoroughly enough with anxiety to