Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Beside him a bug traced the rim of a bowl of uneaten soup. He knew he had lain in the same covers too long, and he did not care. A pot rubbed against him. He fingered his penis, tilted the pot up, and relieved himself into it.
    The door to the house opened.
    â€œYou alive.”
    She had put pot after pot of snow on the fire until it melted. Then she’d poured the hot water into the tub. The water barely filled the tub halfway, but it would have to do.
    â€œYou strong enough to get in this tub?” She began to unbutton his shirt.
    He placed a hand over hers. “I’m a man. Can’t you see that?”
    She shook his hand from hers. “You smell like one, too.” She turned, and while he removed his clothes, she judged the distance to the tub. Might be easier to drag the tub than to move him.
    â€œI can make it,” he said.
    He tried to hide his embarrassment by thinking of her as an old healing woman. Annie had worked him with her hands, but this girl’s touch was different. Annie—with her missing tooth and graying hair and firm touch; Madge—pretty with hands as soft as cotton. He slipped out of his clothes and walked over to the tub, easing into the water.
    She busied herself changing the bedclothes. His knees pushed twinhills out of the water’s surface. She rolled up his dirty shirt, placed it beneath his neck. Just as she thought it would, the water calmed him. He closed his eyes. She picked up a rag, wrung it, and placed it against his cheek. Then she cleared the crust from his lashes, stretching an ear to wipe behind it, running the rag around his neck. Oil puddled on the surface of the water. After she had cleaned him, she lay the rag on his chest.
    She woke him and told him it was time to get out. When he was back in the bed, she stretched the cover up to his neck. The embers ticked. She had used all of the wood melting snow for the bath. His breathing was even, not as steady as sleeping, but not quite awake. She thought again of what he had told her about Annie’s daughter. What had really happened that night? Had he done something dishonorable? More than dishonorable? As much as they had talked, sometimes she suspected there was a part of him she did not know. He said he was trying to respect his marriage vows. Madge wanted to believe that. If it was true, she was the temptation that stood between him and honor, not that Herod girl.
    Slowly, she climbed into bed beside him, rested her arm across his mountain of chest. If anyone entered the door, Madge would be hard-pressed for an explanation. No doctoring required her to lay with him, but his heat warmed her and the room had cooled.
    Hemp cracked open an eye. “Annie?”
    She kissed him, and he did not move. She pushed her body onto his.
    The sisters stood at the end of the bed watching. Madge had never been one of them, had always known they shared a bond she could not sever. Three was a good, solid number. Disputes settled with one vote. A fourth created dangerous alliances, one in which ties were possible. And what if mother and daughter sided against the others? Where was the peace in that?
    â€œAnnie?” he whispered, groaning. His hands were sore where he’dgripped the hackle. In his younger days, he could thrash much more. Annie took his hands in hers and rubbed the hurt out of them. He felt a finger on his lips, and he reached out to her, pulling her to him. She mounted him, and he crushed his face into her neck. She smelled of the hyacinth that grew in the yard. Annie Annie Annie .
    He thought she was his wife, and she did not care. This was her chance, the first one that would really cut her ties with the sisters. He could be hers if he would just let that wife go. There was no cure for his body. This illness was in his mind. She had never deceived anyone, yet when the time came she made the choice easily.
    In that briefest of moments, she decided to give herself to him because, at least