He followed her footsteps all the way back to her family's cabin.
They saw the bruises, the black eye--and the blood. She was not pregnant. She had proof.
It was decided that it was all a terrible mistake. They had judged too soon. Different tactics were called for.
Of course, they must remain married. They must remain together.
But, then, they were still children,
It was decided that they need A Year in the World.
***
They got jobs working at Walmart.
He was suspicious. Why was she laughing and talking so much now? Did she not understand that these pigs were constantly making fun of her? In front of her stupid fish face.
He was frightened around these oafs in their strange, shaggy clothes. Their coarse language, worse than anything he had ever heard his father say in his most drunken state.
But he could not help notice that Fish Face was attracted to them. He had never seen what he looked like before. He had always assumed that he resembled his father. He did. But, he realized, he was not handsome.
He could not blame Fish Face for being attracted to these evil lads. And he hated her the more for it.
***
They took her out to the parking lot. The two invited him along. A third, a stranger, uglier than them, held a video camera. "For the grandkids," he leered, placing the camera in his hands. "The red button."
What came over him? He took hold of it, pressed it.
At first, he laughed. At first they tried to all go at once. But they did not like touching each other and she struggled too much. And the one with the camera kept accidentally erasing the footage of their clumsy, botched entanglements.
The finally shoved him aside and made the ugly one hold the camera, while A took his position at her mouth, and B at her rear. In her rear.
He and the camera watched as they violated her. Her body, with their sexes. Her soul, with that strange device that captured and held you in its own universe for all of eternity. Humiliated. Broken. She was opened again. Wider ever than his mother was. With this camera and these ruffians of the New World, he was spreading her wider than he or any man on the compound could ever dream.
He gasped as she screamed and wondered that she did not bit down on the lad in her mouth, though he was so far down her throat she probably could not have done much damage if she tried.
His arousal mixed with horror as they went at it, rutting mercilessly like unfeeling bulls. He could see blood trickling down her thigh as B plowed away. A fucked her mouth as though it were nothing but a cunt. Disgusting noises emitted from this hole, like slop before swine. He supported this unceasing motion by holding her skull up by fistfulls of her golden hair. Her face was red. Her body limp. He could not see her eyes.
They finished inside of her. They pulled out and let her fall to the ground. A discarded doll. C had him hold the camera and zoom in to a close up of him jerking off over her lifeless body and ejaculating on her face.
"On that Amish bitches face!"
"Fish face."
"What?"
They got theirs in first, but he still had time to make his mark.
"That's her name," he ejaculated.
The others shrugged their shoulders, wiping their dicks in her hair.
"Alright, we'll call it Fish Face's first time. What the fuck. Dude, we're going to make some much money."
***
They did not make any money, or at least he assumed they didn't, because they continued to work at Walmart. They went on with their lives.
He and Fish Face ended their year in the world nine months early. When she returned to her family, she was already showing. There was much rejoicing and fawning over the stomach bulge, and his father even placed a strong, tender hand on his shoulder. These displays of approval of his nonexistent fertility did not perturb him, did not make him bitter.
He felt what they felt, but stronger and deeper. He felt proud of something beyond himself. Even if they would consciously disagree, he knew that he had more than met the accomplishment they imagined in their minds.
They were no longer banished to the hut; both families had come together to help prepare them a proper home in the center of the compound. His father offered to show the young couple to their new abode, but he refused. He took Fish Face's arm and led her from the gathering.
They arrived at the house just as the sun was setting. The light dipped low over the tobacco fields, burning their green leaves red. The smell of spring was in the air, as was the delicious smell of stew cooking over open fires. He inhaled deeply and walked onto the porch, his porch.
She was staring at the sun. For an instant he felt a tinge of that old anxiety from that past summer, so long ago now, but did not let is take hold. He knew better now. He lifted her into his arms. He did not care to speak to her face; she did not even have a face to him now, she was just "Fish."
But just to make sure, he took one last look as he hoisted her body over the threshold. And in those black squid pools of nothing he saw something that put him forever at ease.
She was ready to be a wife now.
