"It has been a privilege, Sister Rosalie, to help you in this endeavor. And may God shine his love on you and your new baby."

The Reverend looked disappointed when I left, but I was just glad that in all that time no one had ever found out about us. And I was confident no one ever would. I was pleased with myself that day and went home to await the birth of my baby and the homecoming of my beloved husband.

"You are one lucky woman, Sister Violet, to be married to the Reverend Thomas. How that man can speak. Why it must just sweep you off your feet!"

I looked at the older woman beaming at me, knowing her to be too kind to be envious, and smiled politely. "Why thank you, Sister Laurel. I am honored to be his wife."

It was true. I was honored to be Mrs. Violet Thomas, the wife of the very Reverend Joseph Thomas. But I wasn't particularly happy about it either. Being married to the Reverend Thomas had its advantages and decided drawbacks. After all, he was well regarded in the community, and we lived in a comfortable style because of it. He was a man of passionate concern for his flock and for the teachings of God. But he didn't have the same passion when it came to me, his wife. It wasn't that he didn't love me after his own fashion. He just felt that as a man of God it was important to distance himself from the temptations of the flesh.

If I had only known that before I married. I wanted the fire of his words to be realized in the fire of his embrace. I wanted children, a son to look up to his father, a daughter to stand graceful as a lily by my side. But in five years of marriage, the sex had been so meager that it seemed impossible that I would ever know the pleasure of conceiving.

The Reverend Thomas came into my room on the night of the full moon once a month. And that was all. We would begin by praying on our knees. That done, I would lie on the bed, my eyes closed, my face turned to the wall as he had instructed. At first I used to pray to myself that maybe I could sway him in my arms to a more lingering embrace. But he kept his mind on God. And singing "Praise My Shepherd Walk With Me," he'd give me the solitary thrust of a man doing his righteous duty. No lover's kiss. No warm embrace. It was all to protect us from the stain of Eve's first sin.

There was nothing I thought I could do but endure the matter for the sake of my marriage and God. So I wasn't prepared when the Reverend told me the truth about Rosalie Johnson's baby boy. There had been a christening for the new baby and, of course, I was required to be there. Oh how the serpents of envy bit my heart looking at that beautiful child. He had red cheeks and strong limbs. He wailed, and both of his doting parents fussed over him. My breasts ached, my own emptiness seemed to mock me even as I congratulated the young woman on her new child.

It was later, at our dinner, that my husband revealed to me his role in creating that perfect child. The longer he talked, the more I stared at him in mute amazement. It wasn't the sin of adultery that inflamed me. The man was innocent of knowledge and did only what he thought was right to help a member of his flock. But it was the sin of pride that I found intolerable. He was overproud of his handiwork. Proud that he had had some hand in sculpting the final form of that beautiful child. This man who would not give me my own child to hold, believed that he had been instrumental in allowing another woman to have hers. I was ill with hurt.

But I had my own pride to think of and my own dignity to uphold. I said nothing, other than a passing comment. I complained of a headache and went to my room to lie down. I took off my clothes and mother-naked lay down on the bed. All I could think of was the men that I had refused in the past. Those other men with warm hands and knees nudging me under my mother's dinner table. Men who seemed overeager to hustle me into their marriage beds. But I had been charmed when I met the Reverend, pleased at last to meet a man who spoke to me with a quiet voice and a restrained hand. Now, lying on the bed, the silk counterpane cool under my skin, I prayed to be visited by every one of those eager men. I didn't care about the extent of my sinful thoughts. I would have coupled with a hundred men if only one of them would have made me feel more like a woman and given to me a child. Bitter tears flowed out of my eyes.

The next day I packed my bags and, making an excuse, I took a coach and went to my mother's house. I stayed there three months, wondering what was to become of me. Rage seared my soul, lashing out at the memory of that woman Rosalie leaning over her baby. Had I seen her wink at my husband at the christening? Had they really sprawled themselves like animals to copulate on the desk I gave him as a wedding present? Had he really been so undignified his trousers draped around his knees, while I sat at home, ignorant and barren? I thought of revenge, then dismissed it as too cold-blooded. What would I do? Steal her child, kill my husband, write a letter and then throw myself in the river? All of those ideas were worse than foolish.

But sometime later, when the heat of my anger had abated, I came to realize that there was a third road between angry-sorrow and angry-revenge. It was called the road to fair play. I would do unto another as was done to me, I decided. Not to hurt another, but to heal myself.

I sat down and wrote a letter to the Reverend. I wanted to come home. But as I was going to be carrying most of my mother's jewelry that she had recently bequeathed to me while still living, I needed an escort. I told my husband that I feared traveling alone with so much wealth on my person. I asked if that nice Brother Caleb Johnson who traveled far distances on his sales routes might not assist me by accompanying me home on his next journey out.

I sent the letter and two weeks later got a reply in my husband's firm clear handwriting. The Reverend had organized it all for me. Brother Caleb Johnson was arriving on such a date to bring me home again in his buggy. The Reverend figured it would take us about three weeks or so on the road as Brother Johnson had to stop at various stores where he had accounts. This suited me very well, and, for the first time in months, I smiled.

On the morning Caleb Johnson was to arrive, I took a good look at myself in the mirror. I was a still an attractive woman. I was older than Rosalie, but I had a full maturity that the younger woman had yet to acquire. She shone brightly like brass, but I was polished gold, gleaming with a rich elegance. I wore my long hair down, like an unmarried woman, and put a small dash of color on my lips. I was just finishing buttoning my cream-colored silk blouse when I heard the groan of the buggy wheels and the braying of Brother Caleb's mule.

I hurried down, kissed my mother good-bye, and walked to the buggy. I can't tell you how it pleased me when I saw Brother Caleb take one look and then another at me as I approached. He scrambled down from the buckboard with a quickness I could not have imagined and took my bags from me.

"Morning, Sister Violet," he said, lifting his hat with one hand while the other hoisted my bag into the buggy's hold.

"Thank you so much, Brother Caleb, for helping me in my time of need," I answered. I gathered up my skirts, raising the hem well above my ankles and calves as I prepared to climb up onto the buckboard. Brother Caleb took me by the waist to help me and I heard the sharp intake of his breath as he glanced down at my bared legs. I pulled down my skirt, and he let go of my waist finally with a shy grin. I smiled back and hoped that Brother Caleb knew as little about the workings of a woman's body as did my husband.

I didn't feel much like talking on the first day of our trip. I just watched the road curving away before us, feeling a new sort of strength well up in me. After five years of hiding what was sensual in me, I was well pleased to find it not gone after all. I could see out of the corners of my eyes that Brother Caleb was watching me. Too many nights alone on the road for you, I thought. Too many nights away from that wife of yours. I'd turn suddenly and catch his glance, pleased to watch him fumble the reins while his face bloomed brighter than a June rose.

That night we stopped in a small wood. The buggy carried everything we needed to set up a tidy and comfortable camp. Caleb unhitched the mule, made a fire, then set beans and bacon on to boil along with coffee and biscuits. He unrolled two sets of sleeping blankets, laying them a discreet distance apart. I made a point of tucking my jewel bag under my pillow. We ate, chatted a while and then said good night. Slipping under the blankets, I pulled off my skirt and blouse, just so he'd know I was sleeping in my shift. He pretended not to notice, but I saw him cast a lingering gaze on my lace-covered stays thrown out last on top of my skirt and blouse. I listened to him wrestle with sleep, twisting and turning as if the nearness of me agitated him some.

I stayed awake a long time, waiting until I was sure he was asleep. Then I got out of my blankets, and, going to the buggy, stuffed all of my mother's jewels into a second pouch hidden in my suitcase. I slipped back under the blankets and, staring up at the stars, wondered briefly if I had the courage. But when I looked over at Brother Caleb sleeping near me, I lost all doubts. He was partially uncovered and bare to the waist. He had a nice manly chest with a small patch of curly hair. One strong arm was flung out, and I started imagining what it might be like to be held tight by such an arm. So I pinched my cheeks until the tears come, then started crying out loudly.

"Oh, Brother Caleb, help me," I sobbed.

He sat up with a sleepy, confused face, his hair tousled. "Wha-what is it?" he mumbled. "Are you all right, Sister Violet?" he asked.

"No, sir. I am not all right. Please help me. Oh God, help me."

"What's happening?" he said, now awake and alarmed at the sight of my tear-streaked face. "Are you in pain?"

"Yes, Brother Caleb, pain of the worst kind."

He scuttled out of his sleeping blankets and came next to me. His trousers, worn low, clung to the sides of his slim hips. I inhaled the strong scent of male sweat and damp earth, and it made my heart beat like a tambourine.

"Do you know what happens to a woman when she is alone without her husband for a long period of time?" I asked tearfully.

"No, ma'am," he said, with a light shake of his head, clearly puzzled by my question.

"Well, it happens that if a woman is not receiving enough fluids from her husband, then her body, craving that which it lacks, will begin to steal from the woman anything that is near it." I held up the empty jewel bag.

Caleb Johnson stared hard at the empty bag, his brow pulled into a frown.

"I don't quite understand you," he murmured.

"It's our bodies," I said patiently. "Women have sinful and greedy parts. We are saved from them by the labors of a man. It is his attentions that keep us from stealing from ourselves."

"Uh-uh," Caleb answered, but I could see I wasn't getting through to him. I drew a deep breath and decided to be blunt.

"In these last months that I have been away from my husband my body has turned against itself. It has stolen my jewels. Taken all them into itself. I can feel them cluttering up my womb. I need these jewels to pay for the new roof on the church."

Caleb's mouth dropped open. "Should I fetch a doctor?" he asked.

"No. I would be too embarrassed by my body's betrayal to seek help from a stranger. I wondered if I might impose on you to help me regain my jewels? If you could provide me with the same attention I receive from my husband, I know my jewels will be given up. It would be the Lord's work to save these jewels for the church, Brother Caleb."

"Can't it wait? You know, until you're home and with the Reverend again?"

"In another day, my blood will be poisoned by these very same jewels living in my body. Please, Brother Caleb, you've got to help me." I pressed my hands together in fervent prayer, aware that the neckline of my shift was gaping open. I saw the young man struggle to keep his eyes on my tearful face and not my heaving bosom.

It wasn't much of a battle, and after about two heartbeats, Caleb ran his hand through his tousled hair and gave me his shy smile.

"Well, I suppose I could help you out. For the church, of course. Do I need to do it in any special sort of a way? You know, so as not to make the pain worse?"

"Only be firm with me. It's the only way to teach that thieving part of me who's master," I said, nearly losing my breath in my excitement.

"Well, all right. I guess I can do that," he said, and Unbuckled his trousers.

In gladness did I lie back on those blankets and allow Brother Caleb to teach my thieving parts a thing or two. Lord, the lessons they learned that first night. A few times over, in fact, before the dawn came. I had always believed it was meant to be like that-full of fire, pleasure, and sometimes just the edge of pain. I kept my eyes open that first time and saw everything that I had missed with the Reverend when my eyes were closed and my face turned toward the wall. I looked down the length of that man's naked body and saw how a man swelled with desire. I watched fascinated as it rose in a sturdy column, standing upright with a mind of its own. I even held it in my hand, astounded by its weight and the warm throb of blood. I watched the way every muscle in that man's thighs contracted as he pushed himself into me, the moonlight falling over the curve of his shoulders, the sweat slick on his chest. And then I looked up and watched his face as the surge come over him, making him grimace, growl like a wild animal, and then his features soften unexpectedly, like a child falling into sleep. How it all thrilled me.

The second time Caleb Johnson came to me that night, I didn't watch his face, nor his body. I wanted only to know how good it could feel in my body. I traveled through my limbs, opening my senses as a woman opens doors in a house too long closed and locked. I took that feeling of pleasure into my fingertips until they glowed, light and porous. I let it enter my mouth through his hot kisses and fill up my chest. Heat loosened the tightness of my throat, released the breath held beneath my heart, flattened my hunched shoulders into the hard ground, and arrowed down into my belly. Caleb then turned us over, pulling me on top of him. He put his fingertips into my armpits, the heels of his palms cupped around my breasts.

Never had sex been so frightening and so demanding. I was allowed to do something. I was asked to be alive and participate. Suddenly there were no walls imprisoning my desire. Out there in the open forest I experienced vertigo, as though I had been pitched high into the air. The wind was cool on my heated skin. I spread my arms wide to catch the dark shadows of the swaying trees in my hands. The man beneath me stirred, his hips locked against mine, and I remembered that I was staked to the ground after all. I leaned forward, my hands braced against his chest, and started to move. But no matter how high I rose on that white column of flesh, he found me and pulled me down hard over him again. The night echoed with the smack of our bare skin meeting and then parting over and over again.

And when early dawn brightened a corner of the sky, and Brother Caleb had fallen off into sleep after a hard night of helping out his church, I slipped back to the buggy and found my suitcase. I fished around in the hidden pouch and pulled up my mother's good diamond brooch. Getting back in between the blankets, I laid the brooch between my legs, like a shell washed up by the tide.

"Why look here, Brother Caleb, the first jewel has been returned," I said, shaking the slumbering man awake. "I'm starting to feel better already," I added.

Brother Caleb squinted at the brooch out of one eye and smiled. "Glad to oblige," he said. And then pulling the covers around us again and tucking me under his arm, he went back to sleep.

So it went for the three weeks of our journey home. Night after night, Caleb offered his heartfelt services, and every morning another jewel appeared on my thighs. If he ever had a contrary thought about what we were doing, he never mentioned it once. By the time we were in sight of our hometown my bag of jewels was filled up again. And I was ready enough to return to my husband, the Reverend. Perhaps that seems strange. But the truth was that while I more than enjoyed the nighttime company of Brother Caleb, I did miss the conversation and the passionate faith of my husband. Brother Caleb took things as they came, never seeking to find the hand of God in any of it. I sorely missed the better parts of my husband's learning and all the lively arguments we often had over issues of our church.

And there was something else, too. I knew that day when I stepped down from Brother Caleb's buggy in front of my own house again, that I was with child. I knew it in the way my palms broke into a sweat, the sudden flush that heated my cheeks, and the spark of pain that pricked the sides of my womb. I could feel it in the shift of my hipbones opening into a wide bowl to hold the full wonder of a new life. I think even God was happy for me because I arrived home on the night of the full moon, and my husband was only too happy to take me to bed. The child would come close enough to the remembered date that he might never know the truth. And maybe it was me, or maybe it was my long absence from home, or just maybe I have Rosalie and Caleb to thank, but for the first time since we had lain together as man and wife, my husband and I looked at each other without fear as he entered me. And for the very first time that I could remember, he didn't sing hymns but called out my name in the throes of his passion.

Well, as I said in the beginning, it was funny the way it all turned out. I might never have known that Violet Thomas got me back with my own husband if I hadn't gone and lost my jar of egg money. I'd hid it earlier in the day to keep the baby from swallowing the coins. But I was so fractious with work, that I clean forgot where I hid it. I told Caleb about it when he got back from one of his journeys, and, instead of helping me look, why he pulled me by the hand into the bedroom, laid me down, and made wild love to me all afternoon. And when he was done, he looked over at me with a smug grin and said: "There. That ought to fix it."

"Fix what?" I said, still confused by this unexpected turn of events.

"Your thieving woman part. It went and stole the egg money because I've been gone from home too much."

"Caleb Johnson, what are you talking about?" I asked, starting to get angry.

He told me then, and I almost wished he hadn't. Told me all about helping Violet Thomas and her thieving parts. How she was afraid for her life. And how they were putting on a new roof with that money because of him helping her out. I just stared at him, too shocked to utter even one word. I was thinking to myself, that bitch Violet Thomas, how could she? That stealer of husbands, that hussy, that wanton she-devil cloaked in the ministry of the church. Damn her to hell.

But it did me no good to swear up and down about Violet Thomas. After all, she was only returning the favor I'd taken off of her. And after I'd calmed down and thought longer about it, I figured I didn't really mind half so much. On account of Violet's little tale about a woman's thieving parts, my Caleb decided it was time he did his business in town, lest I go and steal all the egg money while he was out on the road. So now it's almost as much fun at night again as it was the day we were married.

And as for Violet Thomas, well I saw her in church the other day. I had Caleb sitting on one side of me, trying hard to listen, and the baby on the other side, fussing. Violet was sitting alone, leaning her back against the pew and her arms resting over the rising bulge of her growing belly. She had a glow of pure happiness about her. Though he was in rare form that day, the Reverend looked a little tired around the eyes to me. I got to thinking it was probably all that hard work every night of shaping the ears, the nose, the fingernails, and the rest of his coming child.

Violet glanced away from the Reverend and caught my eye. I looked at her and she looked back at me. And with the fire and brimstone of the Reverend's sermon hailing down around our ears, we just nodded at one another and smiled.

HARVEY JACOBS.

Harvey Jacobs began his career with the Village Voice, then published East, a weekly newspaper on New York's lower east side. He joined ABC-TV, where he became active in the early development of the global satellite system as an executive with ABC's Worldvision Network. Since 1973, he has lived as a freelancer based in New York City, publishing the novels The Juror, Summer on a Mountain of Spices, Beautiful Soup, the forthcoming American Goliath, and the short-story collection The Egg of the Glak. His short stories have appeared in a wide variety of magazines including Omni and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and in some forty anthologies. He has also written widely for TV.

Jacobs writes witty satirical fiction. His previous story in our series had a thumb-sized female protagonist who looked a lot like Pia Zadora. "The Orphan the Moth and the Magic" is based loosely on "The Cottager and His Cat" from The Crimson Fairy Book edited by Andrew Lang. Jacobs's "cat" is a very lucky creature.

THE ORPHAN, THE MOTH, AND THE MAGIC.

by Harvey Jacobs.

Once, in a time apart, a young man called Wilbur Winkle, burdened by terrible poverty-but otherwise gifted with a lithe and powerful frame, excellent good looks, glowing good health, and a warm and outgoing disposition-knelt at the bedside of his dying father.

While his mother lit candles and murmured prayers to a pantheon of gods and goddesses whose work she respected, Wilbur took his father's pale hand.

The old man had the habit of gesturing while he spoke, and used the little strength left him to move his arm up and down, up and down, in order to underline his last words. Wilbur had the feeling he was holding a pump handle which forced astonishing confessions from his progenitor's trembling mouth.

Wilbur's father had been a constant, if remote, presence in the boy's life, and Wilbur did not want to see him go, for reasons both emotional and economic. The family was very poor, living in the most dilapidated hut in a village of slums. There was hardly money for food or fuel enough to sustain their meager existence. His father's diligent labor kept the wolf from the door, but the sound of its snarling was never far away. Now Wilbur would be the sole support of his mother and himself, and he knew he had no talent for the business of business or anything else. He'd done a few odd jobs, but his income was hardly worth counting.

Which is why Wilbur was surprised to hear his father reveal that, far from being a penniless wretch, Mr. Winkle was, in fact, a seasoned miser who had amassed a considerable fortune.

"I have worked dawn to dusk my whole life long," the ancient said, "complaining only that the days were so short as to limit my profits. Each evening, before collapsing from exhaustion, I managed to secrete a coin or two in the wooden box that once held your mother's skimpy trousseau. Now that box is brimming with gold, and I am pleased to inform you that the treasure is there for you to manage for my loyal and devoted wife.

"I hope, Wilbur, that you will nurture the treasure wisely. Ideally, you will do as I did, which is to deprive yourself of all pleasure and luxury. Then you will have the joy of passing the hoard on, in due time, to your offspring. It makes the idea of death almost cozy.

"For a small indulgence, you might consider buying Mother a bolt of cloth with which to make herself a dress to mourn in, since the robe she wears is so frayed as to expose significant portions of her anatomy better kept covered. And as for yourself, I would not begrudge you some frivolous gift, considering your youth. Perhaps you might splurge on some delicacy like a fresh raisin, which you could chew slowly."

"I understand, sir," Wilbur said, trying to conceal his astonishment, which wavered between shock and delight. If his father was not hallucinating, he and his mother would be rich, and it would take more than a raisin to make up for the icy decades of wretched poverty. "Be certain, Father, that I will take your advice to heart. Rest well and without concern."

"And don't splurge on my funeral. Just wrap my corpse in old newspapers and bury me in the swampy section of the cemetery."

"I will follow your instructions to the letter."

Just then, Wilbur's mother came running through the sickroom chasing a fat white moth, shouting, "Your father will surely recover! I have asked for some sign and here it is. Hallelujah!" The moth, her omen, then dived into the only candle permitted to burn by her parsimonious husband. There was a sizzling sound and a sudden flare of light. The moth turned to smoke even as Wilbur felt life leave his father's honest hand.

"He is dead," Wilbur said, as gently as possible.

"Perhaps it was only a moth," his mother said.

"I mean father."

"So much for divine intervention," said the heartbroken woman. "Woe is me, abandoned by my protector and provider in this hovel where my garden is lucky to produce a gnarled turnip or bent asparagus in the best of times and burdened with an only child who is without prospects or ambition. Alas, the future looks as bleak as winter's bowels."

Wilbur decided to keep his mother from news of their fortune until he could at least confirm its existence. Besides, he sensed it wrong to speak crassly of money until his father's new ghost was a bit farther down the road to eternity. So he embraced the poor widow, and together they wept, lamenting death's dominion, until sleep came to soften her grief.

When he heard her sad snoring, Wilbur began a frantic search of their hut. After fruitless hours, just as he was about to yield to fatigue, he discovered a loose plank in the battered floor. When he lifted that splintery board, he found the box his father had described. He pried open its lid, and there he saw gold enough for ten lifetimes of leisure.

He replaced the lid carefully, and the floorboard, said a quick prayer for his father's repose, did a silent but joyful dance with his shadow, then went to bed.

Somewhere from night's mystery came a disturbing dream. The fat, white moth so recently broiled by the can-die flame was newly animated. It flew onto Wilbur's nose, beating its wings in grotesque applause, and said, in a voice like a creaking hinge, "Wilbur, I hate to bring you so disturbing a message, but you must know that soon you will become sole heir to the contents of that brimming box. For your mother is herself living on borrowed time and soon will join her dead spouse. Her constant nagging has made the gods angry, and they will endure no more of it.

"As for the gold, brace yourself, lad, and be strong. For you must carry it to the nearest beach and hurl your inheritance to the tide. Keep not a single coin. That money is tainted and cursed. Your father, who seemed an honest laborer, became involved, through keeping bad company, in a series of outlandish pursuits including usury, kidnapping, theft, gambling, pimping, and dealing, in controlled substances. He was an adulterer, a pornographer, he practiced medicine without a license and was not above plagiarism or the robbing of graves."

"Everyone has their little faults," Wilbur said. "And even if I believe those outrageous accusations, must the living atone for the sins of the dead?"

"Absolutely," the moth told him, hovering before his eyes, "for that is the way of things." Then the moth circled Wilbur's head and flew out an open window.

Wilbur woke in a sweat. It was already morning. His mother was up and cooking a breakfast of nettles and Spam. Brushing his nightmare aside, Wilbur leapt out of bed, and said, "Enough of that slop. I must show you something to help gladden this grey, miserable day."

While the puzzled woman watched, Wilbur exposed the hidden box and its astonishing bonanza. He explained how his father had slaved to accumulate so much, saying nothing of his dream or the dire pronouncements of the depressing insect. But instead of celebrating, his mother turned beet red with a rage she had never before demonstrated.

"All those months, days, hours, minutes, all those years when my arteries filled with the wet sand of despair, all that while I walked on a carpet of gold?" she screamed. Then she beat at her husband's cadaver and fell over in a heap.

Wilbur howled at his parents' grave site. His anguish was sincere, for he missed them both. Still, even as he cast final clods on their tombs, his mind flipped through catalogs and wandered through exotic cities.