World Without Glamor

World Without Glamor

Marsden had filled a basin with well water and began to lather his hands and face with soap when Marie entered their cabin. He looked up and clucked his tongue in disapproval. "Lord," he said. "Look at yourself." Marie scowled at him as she removed her bandanna and shook loose her short-cropped hair. "How do you expect me to look?" Her plain but pretty face was sweat-streaked. She wore a simple tunic which fell halfway down her thighs and almost matched her sturdy, sun-darkened legs in color, although sweat darkened the back of the garment and left rings of white under the armpits where it had evaporated. He had felt it for some time now, this smouldering resentment which had wedged its way between them after only two years of marriage. He couldn't talk to her without arguing, not after they had finished working for the day under the broiling sun and returned, bone-weary and stiff-muscled, to their cabin. The routine sickened him: he would come in first, splash cold water on his face, maybe scrub up some. Marie would follow after feeding their chickens (chickens here on Talbor, three dozen long light years from Earth!), strip off her tunic and try to scrub the grime from her body while he looked at her. And if it were warm she'd prepare their simple dinner half-naked, with no thought for modesty, until he knew every plane, every curve of her body and realized it was a body strong for work and not soft for play, a body good for bearing children, a body which could work all day in the fields like a machine but which would never lose the grit from its pores. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 64965
Author: Marlowe, Stephen
Release Date: Mar 30, 2021
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Terry, W. E., 1921-1992