Sharing a Husband

by knowledge

Background: Mad has lost her step-mother, her step-father to be, and her boyfriend. They were killed in a stagecoach hold up. Left for dead during a stage holdup where her family and friends were killed, she was knocked backwards by the shotgun blast her boyfriend as he jumped infront of her and hit the back of her head. She awakened with no memory. She was rescued by a family of Mormons. The Mormon family of two wives, and nine children ages fourteen to infant have accepted Mad into their family. Because she can’t remember her name, or her life before, she let them rename her. Mad’s new name is Luella or ‘Wella for short.

Mad/Luella was learning how to live on a farm. While the boys worked with their dad doing the regular chores of the farm, the woman took care of the house and garden. There was a big garden requiring a lot of work to keep it weeded, watered, cultivated. It was almost harvest time. The harvest would be taken over by the father and the boys. The canning, drying, and storing of the vegetables and fruit was left to the girls.

Luella had been with the family for two weeks now, she had fast become an intricate part of the family. She accepted the life she was living as just being normal, everyday life for her. One day as they were taking a break from canning tomatoes, Luella asked Martha and Angela a question that had been bothering her. “How do two or more wives work?”

Martha was wiping her brow with a cool damp cloth, “What do you mean dear?”

Luella blushed as she went on, “I mean how do you make bedding arrangements ... how do you ...” she was lost for words.

Both women laughed. Angela answered, “It’s very simple. During the day Martha and I discuss which one of us will sleep with our husband. Then that evening we tack a ribbon on the door of the bedroom of the one who wants him for the night.”

Martha continued, “If it is our time of the month then he has to sleep on the couch in the living room, until we are clean.”

“If one of us is sick or tired the other one takes the night with him.” Angela looked at her sister wife.

“Yes, sharing a husband is really convenient at times. Sometimes he gets the same wife two or more nights in a row.” Both women giggled.

Luella had to ask, “Don’t you get jealous of each other?”

“Honestly, at first it was a bit hard to think of another woman sleeping with my husband...” Martha began, as Angela nodded in agreement, “... but when the benefits of bigamy became evident we came to accept and love each other as real sisters.”

Luella looked from one woman’s face to the other, she asked, “What benefits?”

“Well you can see what a big family we have,” Angela gestured with both hands held out, “sometimes a woman just needs to get away now and then. But the single wives have to grin and bear it no matter how tired and or sick she feels. She has to take care of her family.”

“If I need to get away for an hour or so, I can just ask my sister wife if she would mind watching everything while I am gone.” Martha smiled at her sister wife.

“We find it much easier to take care of our children, washing cloths, cleaning house, making meals, and every day living when we share it with our sister wife.” Angela explained.

“Then there are times when we women need a real friend to talk to. A woman friend that will understand, as no man can, a woman’s feelings.” Angela smiled and held out her hand to Martha who took it tenderly in hers. Luella could see that these women were loving friends and sisters in the greater sense of the word’s meaning.

As Luella and Patty were heading down the long hallway towards their bedroom that night, she saw a pretty ribbon hanging on a door. She smiled as she continued on to Patty’s and her bedroom.

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This western story takes place in the post US Civil War era, late 1870s. It is about how and why a girl becomes a bounty hunter.

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How and why a girl becomes a bounty hunter.

A chapter in the book She's Called Mad

Sharing a Husband

by knowledge

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