The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner

in our marriage, I felt he saw me as I was, not as the wife he never wanted, and his hands dropped quickly to the lacings of his braies, as if he was impatient to free himself.
    He seemed impossibly large. Yet he entered me with a care that filled my eyes with tears and made me grateful for the flickering light that half hid my face.
    This time, I almost cried out at the simultaneous pain and pleasure of it, his organ filling me until my entire existence became the sensation of him moving inside me, gathering momentum, his breath coming fast and low in my face as I arched my hips to meet his thrusts and my hands caressed his chest, tangling in the coarse hair.
    A shudder went through him. I felt him enlarge even more and I whispered his name. He went still, his entire body taut as if he fought to keep something back, and then he gasped and plunged deeper, spearing me with a heat that spiraled into a thousand dancing circles, until I too was crying out, kneading him with my hands, my legs clasped tight about his waist.
    He fell to my side, panting. I clenched my muscles, willing his seed to take root. As I turned to him, my entire body throbbing, he rose from the bed. I heard him gather his clothes and pull on his hose and doublet with a haste that filled me with shame.
    I whispered, “Stay with me tonight.”
    And he replied quietly, “I cannot.”
    I reared up. “Why? Was I not pleasing to you?”
    He averted his eyes. “You … you were. You are. But I am expected elsewhere.”
    I couldn’t stop the anger from tainting my voice. “It’s that woman,isn’t it? You’re leaving me for her. Does she mean so much that you’d humiliate me before the entire court?”
    “She means everything.” He met my stare, his expression drawn, almost sad. “I don’t mean to hurt you. But you must accept what I can and cannot give. Once you have a child, you will not care so much anymore. You will have our son to love instead.”
    I dropped my hands to my belly, feeling the pain of his words as if he’d struck me. I wanted to bellow that I would always care. I was the one who deserved his love, not that statue who held him in her thrall. But I did not, for I now realized what I’d kept even from myself, the delusion that had spurred me and kept me believing I had the power to change his heart.
    If it hadn’t been her, there would be another. But not me. Never me.
    I turned from him. “Go, then. Go to her.”
    Without a word he left, closing the door softly behind him.
    I awoke three months later to cramps. Crawling from bed, I staggered toward my privy pail, despairing that my menses had returned. My appetite had been ravenous of late, and I’d secretly begun to hope I might be with child, as my previous menses had been sporadic, not nearly as strong as before. But as Lucrezia rushed in to assist me, I felt my belly twist in a vicious knot and a viscous gush of blood splattered under my gown. I froze, gazing in horror at the clotted mess at my feet. Then my legs gave way and, with a stifled gasp, I crumpled to my knees.
    Lucrezia replaced my bloodied nightdress with my robe and guided me to my chair. I moaned, hugging my midriff, rocking back and forth. “No. Please God, no.”
    I watched, aghast, as Lucrezia sopped up the blood and set the soiled cloths in the hearth. Only then did I whisper, “No one can know. It would be the end of me.”
    She nodded. “I’ll burn everything, including the dress. You rest now.”
    “How can I rest?” My entire body started to tremble. “I’ll never be able to rest again. I’ve lost his child. What will I do now? How can I survive?”
    “You will.” She fixed me with her stare. “You are young. Many women lose their first one. He came to you before and he will again. He needs a son as much as you do.”
    My eyes filled with tears as she stoked the embers, adding extra wood to build a fire that would turn the evidence of my womb’s failure into ashes.
    Two days later, the dauphin