The first few weeks of Lottie's marriage were everything she'd ever dreamed of and more. Part of it might've been that she had never dared to dream of very much, but how could someone like her have thought that she could be with someone like Cain?

As it turned out, he was the "half-breed" new farmer that Willa and Drea had spoken of, who'd just moved into the dilapidated old farm that he had inherited from a distant uncle.

His less-than-humble abode was home to more weeds than grass and wooden fencing with more rotten bits than not, but it was also situated at the edge of the village and the woods. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere away from village activity.

She'd expected the old cottage to be infested with rats and bugs, but it seemed Cain had already put the effort into making it clean and cosy prior to her arrival. With a hearth that built a strong fire, a simple but sturdy table next to the window, and even a bed behind a dividing wall, it was everything she could have asked for. It was perfection.

Given the state of the farmstead, the pair spent many of their first days together working on the land and its fixtures. While she pulled the weeds and planted new patches of flowers and vegetables, he chopped the wood and built new fences, new window shutters, and a new workbench for himself. Once all that was done, he bought a couple of cows and chickens, and she tended to them while he tilled the soil.

From sun-up to sun-down, they worked. Life on a farm was taxing but gratifying. It was perfection.

By noon each day, when the sun glared down, relentless even in autumn, he would invariably get so hot that his sweat would soak through his shirt.

At that point, he would invariably check around him to see if Lottie was nearby. If she was, he would continue as he was in a shirt that clung to the muscles of his back and chest, leaving little to her increasingly rampant imagination. A few too many times, he caught her staring mid-whatever she was doing, but he would respond only with a sweet and indulgent smile that made her feel so warm she would suspect if she'd caught a fever.

Then once she headed back inside, he would invariably pull off his drenched shirt, and she would invariably peek out at him through the shutters, her eyes wide and curious as she examined the perfect specimen of a hardworking man. It was more than perfection.

If you were to ask any resident of Wilkin around this time, they would tell you that Lottie and Cain were very fine, very productive members of their community, who lived a perfectly ordinary life like all the rest of them.

Some of them might also tell you a little more, like the fact that she was ugly because of her scar of stupidity, and he was ugly because he was a brown foreigner, though that was perhaps why they were a match for each other.

No, don't frown when you hear this, because they would most certainly assure you that the villagers of Wilkin were very accepting people and that was why they had not ostracised either of them. "Ma brother's sister's cousin's wife has a friend who knows someone two villages over from Wilkin, ya know, and they would throw ya to the wolves if they found out ye were even a quarter Qeyean. Disloyal t' the kingdom 'n all that. We're a lot more open-minded here, ye see."

I guess the message there is that Wilkinians are relatively good eggs, all things considered. (And should you believe them? Don't ask me. I'm just the narrator.)

But these were the sorts of things that Lottie sometimes heard when she visited her grandmother and the local traders. In the past, such words would have torn her heart to shreds. At the height of her happiness and hopes for the future, their words washed over her like rainwater to gather at her feet in a dirty puddle. She could choose to step into it and let it splash over her favourite red boots, or she could step over it and leave it behind. It was her choice, and she relished the power of having that choice.

Cain had told her she was beautiful at their wedding, and she thought he was the most beautiful and kindest person she'd ever met, and that was all that mattered, wasn't it? So step over the puddle, she would. It did nothing to bring down all the other perfections.

Those weeks, she forgot to look down at the ground. She forgot to hide her ugliness, because he thought she was beautiful and his smiles made her feel beautiful. With her head up, the world seemed bigger and brighter, and the smiles she shared with the passersby made some of them forget all about the scar she no longer tried to hide.

What happened after the first few weeks then? Put simply, no one can escape the law of the universe that all good things must come to an end.

When you have a man telling a woman that she is beautiful, and the same woman cannot stop ogling and admiring the man, and they're husband and wife, you would expect them to hug and kiss and stumble into bed and do the deed. Repeatedly.

So when there were no hugs, no kisses, no bed-stumbling and no deed-doing for weeks on end, Lottie began to doubt. All you ever needed was a small sapling of doubt, and it would bloom and grow on its own like all the weeds she'd pulled.

"Is he nice to you, my dear?" Grandma would ask her.

"Very nice, Grandma," she would answer, and it would be honest, for he never raised his voice at her, never said a harsh word to her, always held the door open for her, always helped her whenever she needed it. For all intents and purposes, he was the perfect husband any girl could wish for. There was just something... something missing.

"I will be a great-grandmother soon then!"

"I don't... I'm not sure, Grandma."

"It will happen, my dear." Grandma would pat Lottie's hand in reassurance. "It will happen."

But she really wasn't so sure. Would it happen if they always slept separately—she in the bed and he on a cot by the door—and they never touched each other?

Even though she'd never been taught explicitly the magic behind baby-making, instinct told her that men and women operated more like dogs than flowers. Could he pollinate her across the field when they worked together, or even across the table when they ate their meals in companionable silence?

Lottie had her answer exactly a month into their marriage.

On one of her trips back from Grandma's, she heard the sounds of low grunts and breathy moans coming from an old, abandoned cottage. Thinking there could be someone sick or hurt, Lottie edged towards the window shutters that had been left slightly ajar.

And there it was, Willa's husband, Cole, grunting as he drove his hips into the bent-over figure of Willa's sister, Drea, who moaned with every thrust from the man behind her.

Lottie ran away from the old cottage, her face heated from the scene she'd just witnessed.

Dogs. Men and women coupled like dogs. Not flowers.

That evening, Lottie decided to channel the bravery she'd once exhibited as a seven-year-old girl and ask. If she never asked, then she would never know why her husband never tried to lay a paw on her.

"Are you, umm... healthy?" she asked Cain from across the table.

He looked up from the bowl of stew he was supping, his spoon paused in midair. "Sorry?"

"It's just..." She nibbled on her bottom lip as she pondered how best to ask about such an embarrassing matter in the most sophisticated way. Surely, she couldn't ask him why he never pounded her from behind? They were married, but they were still just a little more than strangers. "Well... I was wondering why you don't act more like... a dog?"

A crease pinched between his brows. "You want me to act more like a dog?"

Lottie considered this for a moment. Cole was dog-like with Drea, instead of with his wife, Willa. The thought of Cain being dog-like with another woman... No. She didn't want him to just act more like a dog.

"Yes, but with me," she clarified.

"A dog," he repeated. "With you."

She nodded. Was it so hard to understand what she wanted?

"Do you know what you're asking from me, Lottie?" His voice came out like a low rumble, almost like a growl. And his eyes gleamed, so much like a predator on hunt that they reminded her of a starless night many years ago, when she followed her heart and met a creature who changed the path of her life.

"I..." After his reaction, she wasn't sure anymore. So she didn't continue, and he didn't press.

Eventually, they finished their supper with the question hanging between them and retired to their separate beds as if the conversation had never happened.

In the coming weeks and months, she watched her husband closely, observing how he interacted with others on their visits into the village for supplies.

It was very noticeable once she started to pay attention.

The way he never so much as glanced at any girl in the village, not even any of the pretty young wives or curious maidens who failed to hide their interest in him despite his exotic colour.

The way he studied the men far more intently, even Old Sam whenever he gave her one of his signature crooked grins.

It wasn't a happy realisation, but at least she knew the truth now.

Not that there was anything wrong with 'it', even though she knew 'it' was something that many considered sordid, and she'd heard of some lords who executed the citizens of their townships for 'it'.

It explained why a man like him wanted to marry an unwanted spinster like her; why he was friendly but kept his distance; why he called her beautiful but never attempted any baby-making deeds with her.

All he needed out of their marriage was a cover, and Lottie was the perfect choice because she had no marriageable prospects anyway.

She couldn't blame him for not having told her the truth, for sodomy was a serious matter and he probably didn't know that he could trust her with that secret.

But she should've known—of course, the only man who would marry Ugly Lottie would be one who wasn't even interested in women at all.

Word count: 1,750