The Offering
"In Millbrook, there's a tradition: every new bride spends her wedding night with the mayor's wife first. To learn. To be prepared. Her husband waits downstairs while she's taught everything she needs to know."
In Millbrook, we have traditions.
Some of them are normal—the harvest festival, the Christmas parade, the summer fair. Others are older. Stranger. Passed down through generations of women who understood things that outsiders never will.
The Offering is one of those traditions.
I learned about it three months before my wedding.
"Every bride goes to Eleanor," my mother explained over tea. "The night of your wedding. Before you go to your husband."
"Goes to her for what?"
"Instruction." My mother's cheeks flushed. "The mayor's wife teaches you... how to be a wife. How to please. How to receive pleasure." She cleared her throat. "It's been this way for a hundred years."
"That's insane."
"That's Millbrook." She met my eyes. "Every woman in this town learned from Eleanor or her predecessors. Your grandmother learned from Eleanor's mother. I learned from Eleanor when she was younger."
"You—"
"One night. Then you go to your husband prepared." She smiled. "Trust me. You'll be grateful."
The wedding was beautiful.
Daniel and I exchanged vows in the old stone church. Three hundred guests witnessed our union. The reception went until midnight, and then—as tradition demanded—Daniel kissed me goodbye at the door.
"I'll be waiting," he said. "However long it takes."
"You know about this?"
"Every man in Millbrook knows." He squeezed my hands. "My father waited for my mother. His father waited for his grandmother. We wait because we love."
The mayor's car arrived to take me away.
Eleanor Hartwell was seventy-two years old.
Three hundred pounds of matriarchal authority. She'd been the mayor's wife for forty-eight years, and the town's instructor for thirty—since her own teacher passed on the role.
"Come in, child." She met me at the door of the Hartwell mansion. "You're beautiful. Daniel is a lucky man."
"Thank you, Mrs. Hartwell."
"Eleanor." She took my hand. "Tonight, I'm Eleanor. And you're just a bride who needs teaching."
The instruction room was on the second floor.
It looked like a bedroom—massive four-poster bed, soft lighting, silk sheets in cream and gold. But there were other things too. Books. Diagrams. Implements I didn't recognize.
"First, we talk." Eleanor sat in a chair by the window. "Tell me what you know about sex."
"I—we've been together. Daniel and I."
"How many times?"
"Dozen? Maybe more."
"And how many times have you climaxed?"
I felt my face burn. "A few."
"A few." She nodded. "That's what I expected. Men try, but they don't understand women's bodies." She stood. "Tonight, I'll teach you to understand your own. Then I'll teach you to guide Daniel toward what you need."
"How?"
"The same way my teacher taught me." She reached for my wedding dress. "By showing you."
She undressed me slowly.
The wedding dress pooled at my feet. The corset underneath. The delicate lingerie I'd chosen for Daniel.
"Beautiful," Eleanor murmured, circling me. Her hands traced my curves—appreciative, professional, assessing. "Young skin. Responsive." Her fingers found my nipple, pinched gently. I gasped. "Very responsive."
"Mrs. Hart—Eleanor—"
"Shhh." She was undressing now, shedding her robe to reveal a body that was massive and soft and somehow magnificent. Breasts that hung to her waist, belly that cascaded in endless rolls, thighs thick as tree trunks. "Your first lesson: women understand women."
She laid me on the bed.
"Your husband will rush," she explained, positioning herself between my thighs. "Men always rush. But a woman's body needs time. Attention. Worship."
Her mouth found my throat. Kissing. Nibbling. Mapping the places that made me shiver.
"Here." She sucked below my ear. "This spot. Tell Daniel about it."
"Okay—"
"Here." Her tongue traced my collarbone. "And here." She kissed the swell of my breast. "A woman's body is a map. Tonight, you learn your geography."
She spent an hour on my breasts alone.
Licking circles around my nipples without touching them. Making me arch off the bed with need before finally—finally—taking one in her mouth.
"God—"
"That's anticipation." She switched to the other. "Make Daniel wait. Make yourself wait. The longer you build, the harder you crash."
I was writhing beneath her. Desperate. Every nerve ending on fire.
"Please," I heard myself say. "Please, I need—"
"Tell me what you need."
"Touch me. Lower. Please."
"Good girl." Her hand slid down my belly. "Lesson two: ask for what you want. Demand it. Never be silent about your pleasure."
Her fingers found me dripping.
"You're ready," she observed. "But I won't enter you yet. First, you need to understand the external."
She spread my lips. Exposed me to the cool air.
"This is your clitoris." Her finger circled it—not touching, just hovering. "It has eight thousand nerve endings. More than any part of a man's body. It exists only for pleasure." She smiled. "Most men don't know what to do with it. After tonight, you'll teach Daniel."
"How?"
Her tongue answered.
I'd received oral sex before.
Daniel tried. He was enthusiastic. Loving. But he approached it like a task to complete—lick, suck, insert fingers, hope for results.
Eleanor approached it like an art.
She started with my outer lips. Long, slow licks that made me squirm. Then my inner lips—teasing, tasting, learning my responses. She circled my clit for what felt like hours, never quite touching, building pressure until I was begging.
"Please—please, Eleanor—I need—"
"You need to come." Her tongue finally found my clit. "So come."
I came harder than I ever had.
Screaming into a pillow while her tongue worked me through waves of pleasure that seemed to last forever. My thighs clamped around her head, my back arched off the mattress, and I forgot where I was, who I was, everything except the sensation of her mouth on me.
"Fuck—oh God—fuck—"
"There." She emerged, glistening with me. "That's what you're capable of. Now you know."
I was shaking. Tears streaming down my face.
"Why are you crying?"
"I didn't know," I whispered. "I didn't know it could feel like that."
"Now you do." She kissed my forehead. "And you'll teach Daniel to give you the same."
The night continued.
She showed me techniques—how to position my hips, where to place Daniel's hands, how to communicate with sounds and movements. She demonstrated with her fingers, her tongue, toys I'd never seen before.
"Every woman is different," she explained, sliding a vibrator against me while her mouth worked my breast. "But the principles are universal. Attention. Patience. Communication."
I came four more times before dawn.
Each one building on the last. Each one teaching me something new about my own body.
"Now," she said as the sun rose, "you're ready for your husband."
She gave me final instructions.
"Don't be passive." She was dressing me in a silk robe—my wedding dress packed away for return. "Take what you need. Guide his hands. Tell him when something works and when it doesn't."
"What if he's offended?"
"Men who love you aren't offended by your pleasure. They're grateful for direction." She cupped my face. "You're his wife now. His partner. His teacher in some things, his student in others. The Offering ensures you start as equals."
"Thank you, Eleanor."
"Thank me by raising daughters who continue the tradition." She smiled. "And by telling your husband exactly what you learned."
Daniel was waiting.
He'd slept on the couch, as tradition demanded. Rose when I came through the door.
"How was it?"
"Transformative." I crossed to him, took his hand. "I have so much to show you."
"Show me?"
"Eleanor taught me about my body. Now I'm going to teach you." I led him toward the stairs. "Our real wedding night starts now."
We went to our bedroom.
I undressed him slowly—the way Eleanor had undressed me. Kissed his throat, his chest, his stomach. Made him wait while I explored.
"I've never—" he started.
"Shh." I straddled him. "Tonight, I lead. Tomorrow, we'll find our rhythm together."
I sank onto him. Controlled the angle, the depth, the pace. Touched myself while he watched, put his hands where I needed them, told him exactly what felt good.
"Here," I breathed, guiding his thumb to my clit. "Circle. Slowly. Like this."
"Like this?"
"Yes—fuck—just like that—"
I came on top of him.
The first orgasm I'd ever had during penetration. I screamed, and he caught me, held me while I shuddered, watched my face with wonder.
"I've never seen you like this," he whispered.
"I've never been like this." I kissed him. "Eleanor taught me what I was capable of. Now I'm teaching you."
"Thank God for Millbrook traditions."
I laughed. Rolled us over. Pulled him deep.
"Again," I demanded. "And this time, don't stop until I tell you."
Epilogue: Five years later
Our daughter is three.
In fifteen years, she'll be old enough to marry. And when she does, she'll go to whoever holds the tradition then—maybe Eleanor's successor, maybe someone new.
"Do you ever think about that night?" Daniel asks sometimes.
"Often." I curl against him. "It made us what we are."
"And what are we?"
"Equal partners." I kiss his chest. "Lovers who communicate. A couple that keeps learning."
"Because of one night with an old woman."
"Because of a hundred years of wisdom." I smile against his skin. "Millbrook knows what it's doing."
He doesn't argue.
He's too busy following my directions.