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Green glowed; brown questioned.

Is it possible? I never thought-

Green assured; brown-accepted.

I will try. Husband, I will try.

She was too confused, at first, to follow him down that path. She simply joined her body to the rhythm. But her mind, soon enough, found the way to join an old rut to a new destination. There was safety and security, for her family as much as herself, in keeping her man satisfied. This was what he wanted, as strange as it seemed. So She began by simply reacting, allowing Jeff's desire for her own pleasure to guide her. Waves of delight, she signaled with her mouth, her hands, her voice. Her husband responded. Learning, learning. The waves came closer, higher.

She was almost frightened, then, but drove away the fear with duty. My husband wants this. New desire found security in old habit. Give him what he wants. Safety lies that way.

Safety fell aside, duty fell aside, reaction fell aside. There was nothing left but Gretchen. The waves became a roaring surf and the surf became the tide. Unstoppable, now. When the end came, Gretchen even managed to accept it. Embrace it. Take it for her own, as something valuable and precious.

Glory in it, as if she were a duchess herself.

A refugee from Sepharad had found her sun-drenched legends in this place, and a Scots cavalryman his deadly faeries. Now, a young woman from broken Germany found her old wives' tales. They were true, after all. All that they had said. All that Gretchen had disbelieved, just as she had disbelieved the tales of knights and chivalry.

A new wife had found herself in her own pleasure. She repaid her husband with feverish kisses, tear-filled eyes, and a voice sobbing years of promise.

***

Satan, she repaid with laughter. Triumphant, exultant mockery, bouncing off the walls of a trailer bedroom and echoing down into the Pit.

Jeff, exhausted for the moment, lay by her side and watched her. Puzzled by the laughter, perhaps, but not caring. He was awash in his own satisfied pleasure and, still more, in the pride of his accomplishment. Whether he understood the savage humor filling his wife-and he didn't, not at all-he was reassured by the joy in her face and the warmth of her hands, stroking his body.

Finally, Gretchen understood the full extent of her victory. Total, complete. She had beaten the Devil. Whipped him like a cur.

She had saved everything from his dark realm. Even the one thing she had thought lost forever. The only thing she possessed of value to the Beast, which she had traded away to save her family. Now, at the threshold of her new life, she reached through the iron gates and snatched back her virginity. Gleefully, she robbed the Robber, and gave the treasure as a gift, to the man who had earned it.

Tears came, too-tears of joy and gratitude-but the laughter remained. Far below, deep, she could hear Satan's howl of rage.

I have been cheated! Swindled!

Laugh and laugh and laugh. Kissing and fondling her husband all the while. He was young, and clean, and glorious, and so fine, and so wonderful. Gretchen was not surprised to see how quickly he returned to her. Nor with what eagerness she joined him.

She had beaten the Devil. Now, she would torture the monster.

***

Satan's torment lasted through the night. Again and again, Gretchen lashed him with her pleasure. Hers and, even more, the delight she gave her husband. For hours, the Devil rampaged through his stone-glowing chambers. Shattering the walls with his horns, lashing the rubble with his tail, stamping his rapists under cloven hooves.

As her husband's ecstasy mounted-more from his wife's love in the doing, than from the doing itself-the Devil fled in despair. Out of his chambers he sped, down and down into the bowels of the Inferno.

Gretchen followed him, like a dachshund after a badger.

Go away! shrieked the Beast. Leave me alone!

But she was remorseless, merciless. Watch, monster. She cornered him in a grotto, dark and dank with refuse.

Satan cowered. Stop it, he whimpered. You're hurting me.

Watch. Her body-warm, wet, soft, loving-crushed vileness against the stones. Watch.

***

She was done with Satan, then. Done forever. Even Gretchen was satisfied with her triumph. Her husband's love filled her, purging every trace of the past. Gone now, all gone. Gone forever.

Gretchen believed in that love, now. It was like a pledge. Never again would she have to measure her life by how bad it might be. Only by how good.

There would be surprises in their life, she knew. Many of them, as they came to know each other. Some of those surprises would be unpleasant, of course. He would be petty at times; nasty; spiteful. Whatever. And so would she, at times.

No matter. There would be no surprises at the heart of their marriage. Of that, Gretchen was quite certain.