Nell by Nancy Thayer

terrified.
    She’d been awake most of Saturday night, watching out the window at the sky; she was afraid it would rain Sunday and the ride would be canceled. She was afraid the babysitter would get sick. She was afraid her children would come down with a serious illness. She was afraid she’d fall in the bathtub and break her leg. She dreamed of the sexual pleasure of riding horses with Steve and perhaps kissing him in the meadow, then going back to stable the horses—perhaps they would embrace and in their frenzy they’d make love in the barn, on the hay! Nell had never done that. She was so glad to be divorced and free for new experiences—she felt young, she felt young enough to think she could fly.
    It did not rain. The sitter came. The children stayed healthy all day. Nell did not break a leg. She wore jeans and sneakers and tied her hair back, but not severely, and drove out to Steve’s farm. It was a glorious, warm spring day, a perfect apple blossom day. Steve saddled up a horse named Maud for Nell, and together they rode out into the field. They trotted, cantered, walked; they stopped now and then to admire the view. When they looked at each other, it was very much like kissing, and under the sun, out in the meadow, they smiled at each other, making a tacit agreement.
    They rode for an hour. As they rode, Nell remained aware of Steve’s intense sexuality, but slowly she became aware of something else. She had not been on a horse for a long time, for years, and it took all her strength and concentration to ride and post on Maud and not look like a bouncing fool. When they were finally back at the barn andNell slid off her horse, she landed on legs made of rubber. Pains shot up her thighs and through her pelvis. She looked at Steve, so near her, so masculine and strong, as he hauled off the saddles, tossed them on their hooks, tended to the horses, his muscles bulging through the cloth of his shirt. She looked at him and wanted him, but knew that if she felt anything between her thighs except warm bath water she would cry out in agony. She almost did cry out in frustration.
    “How’re you doing?” Steve asked.
    “I’m really feeling it,” Nell said, rubbing her rear.
    “So am I,” Steve said, misunderstanding her.
    He came over and took Nell in his arms and kissed her for a long time on the mouth. He moved his hands up and down her back, her bottom, her legs, pressed her gently against him. Nell did not know if she was shaking because of the horse ride or the man. She and Steve were almost exactly the same height, so that they matched, all up and down, their legs touching, their pelvises pressed together, and then Nell felt a wonderful oblong of hardness pushing through the fabric of Steve’s jeans against her body. She had never slept with any man but Marlow. She began to shake, to quiver. Her legs went weak and would not hold her. Her body became a riot of conflicting sensations because of her desire and because of the pain of her body from the horseback ride. She was all warm and sweet between her legs, but at the same time the muscles in her thighs and back cramped and each slight shift of her legs sent a stabbing pain around her pelvis. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
    “Steve,” she said finally, pulling away from his mouth, “I’m sorry. I have to go. I have to go home.”
    Steve took her face into his hands. “What?” he asked. “What’s wrong? Nell, what’s the matter?”
    She could not bring herself to tell him the truth. It was too embarrassing. She already felt strange and at a disadvantage, being eight years older than Steve: she didn’t want him to think she was physically decrepit, already falling apart. She pulled away from Steve and, walking on legs that sent jabs of pain shooting up into her crotch, she hurried to her car. It took all of her dignity and will power to force her legs into a normal walk: if Steve hadn’t been there to see her, she would have wobbled,