Our kissing grew more ardent, as though our lips alone might close whatever aching distance lay between us. I moved his hand again, this time to push up my skirt along the side of one leg. His hand stroked the smooth flesh there and, without further urging, slid over to my inner thigh. I arched my lower body toward his, nearly writhing against him now, needing him to touch me everywhere.

“Letha? Where are you at?”

My sister’s voice carried over the wind; she wasn’t nearby but could no doubt show up if she sought me. Kyriakos and I broke apart, both gasping, pulses racing. He was looking at me like he’d never seen me before. Heat burned in his gaze.

“Have you ever been with anyone before?” he asked wonderingly.

I shook my head.

“How did you…I never imagined you doing that…”

“I learn fast.”

We stood there, locked in time for a moment. Then, he pulled me back to him, his lips crushing mine once more. His hand returned to my dress, hiking it up over my waist. He held my bare hips firmly and pressed himself to my body. I felt him hard against me, felt my body respond to something that seemed both new and natural at the same time. The fingers of one hand slid over, feeling the wetness between my thighs. His touch felt like fire, and I moaned, wanting him to stroke me there more and more.

Instead, he turned me around so that I faced the wall. With one hand, he kept the skirt of my dress up, and with his other, I had the vague impression of him fumbling with his clothes. Then, a moment later, he pushed himself into me. It was a shock, like nothing I’d experienced before. I’d meant what I’d said earlier: that I’d never been with another man. And even wet with desire, it still hurt to have him inside me that first time. He seemed too big and me too small.

I cried out at the pain, an odd sort of pain that didn’t diminish the fire that had been building within me. His thrusts were hard and urgent, no doubt fueled by feelings he’d long been holding back on. And after a while, the initial pain seemed irrelevant. Pleasure began to grow as he moved into me over and over, and I adjusted myself so that I bent over more and let him take me more deeply. He thrust more forcefully, and I again exclaimed in surprise and blissful pain. I heard a muffled groan, and then his body shuddered as he spent himself, his movements at last slowing down.

When he was done, he pulled out and turned me around. It was the first time I’d seen him naked in all of this. There was blood and semen on both of us, which I tried to clean off my thighs before finally just letting my dress fall back over me. I’d be bathing before the wedding anyway.

Kyriakos had just finished putting his clothes back on when we heard my name again. This time, it was my mother. He and I stared at each other in wonder, scarcely believing we’d just done what we had. I was aglow with love and the joy of sex and a whole host of new feelings I wanted to explore in more detail. Fear of my mother drove us apart.

Stepping back, he grinned and pressed my hand to his lips. “Tonight,” he breathed. “Tonight we…”

“Tonight,” I agreed. “We’ll do it again. I love you.”

He smiled at me, eyes smoldering, and then hurried off before we were caught. I watched him go, my heart filled with joy.

The rest of the day went by in a dreamy haze, partially because of the flurry of wedding activity and partially because of what had happened with Kyriakos. I’d had a vague idea of what would occur on our wedding night, but my imaginings had never come close to the real thing. I practically danced my way through the rest of the day, impatient to truly be Kyriakos’ wife and make love again and again.

The wedding was taking place at our home, so there was enough work (along with my own preparation) to almost keep me distracted. As the ceremony time grew nearer, I was bathed and dressed in my wedding gown: an ivory tunic of fine material, wrapped with a flame-red veil. I had to kneel a little for my mother to adequately adjust the veil, earning a number of jokes about my height from my sister.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except me and Kyriakos being together forever. Soon, guests began arriving, and my heart rate increased. Anticipation and the day’s heat made me sweat, and I fretted about ruining the dress.

Someone called out that Kyriakos and his family were approaching. The excitement in the air grew palpable, shared by everyone now. Yet, when Kyriakos arrived, he barged right into the house, going against the traditional procession and stately ceremony that should have taken place. For half a second, some girlish part of me thought that Kyriakos—in his burning love for me—couldn’t wait through the drawn out process of a ceremony. I was quickly enlightened.

With a face flushed with fury, he marched up to my father. “Marthanes,” Kyriakos growled, finger in my father’s face. “You insult me if you think I’m going through with this wedding.”

My father was clearly taken aback—not an easy thing to accomplish. People chastised me for my sharp tongue, but that was largely because I was a woman. I wasn’t half as bad as my father, and he’d intimidated a lot of men twice his size. (It was a sad irony that while I was tall for a woman, my father was short for a man.) A few moments later, my father recovered his usual bluster.

“Of course you are!” he exclaimed. “We’ve made the betrothal. We paid the dowry.”

Kyriakos’ father was there, and judging from his fine clothes and surprised expression, this was all news to him too. He set a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Kyriakos, what’s this all about?”

“Her,” said Kyriakos, pointing his finger at me. His gaze swung to my face, and I flinched from its force, as though I’d been slapped. “I will not marry Marthanes’ whore of a daughter!”

There were gasps and murmurs from those around us. My father’s face turned bright red. “You’re insulting me! All of my daughters are chaste. They’re all virgins.”

“Are they?” Kyriakos turned back to me. “Are you?”

All eyes turned to me, and I blanched. My tongue felt dry. I couldn’t muster any words.

My father threw up his hands, clearly exasperated by this nonsense. “Tell them, Letha. Tell them so that we can end this and get our dowry back.”

Kyriakos had a dangerous glint in his eyes as he studied me. “Yes, tell them so that we can end this. Are you a virgin?”

“No, but—”

Chaos erupted. Men shouted. My mother wailed. The guests were a mix of stunned shock and delight over a new scandal. Desperately, I tried to find my voice and shout above the din.

“It was only with Kyriakos!” I cried. “Today was the first time!”

Kyriakos turned away from where he’d been telling my father the dowry would not be returned. He glanced over at me. “It’s true,” he said. “We did it today. She spread herself as easily and knowingly as any whore, begging me to take her. There’s no telling how many men she’s offered her body up to—or how many she would even when married.”

“No!” I exclaimed. “It’s not true!”

But no one heard me. There was too much arguing now. Kyriakos’ family was raging over the insult. My family was bristling against the name-calling, and my father was trying his best to do damage control, though he knew perfectly well that my own admission had damned us. Premarital sex was not so out of the ordinary for lower classes, but as a tradesman’s family, we modeled a lot of our customs on our betters among the nobility—or pretended to. A girl’s virtue was a sacred thing, one that reflected on her father and family as a whole. This disgraced all of them—and had serious repercussions for me. As Kyriakos well knew.

He had moved toward me so that I could hear him through the noise. “Now they all know,” he said in a low voice. “They all know you for what you are.”