Sins of the Amish: Buggy Nights

If you're a guy and watch too many movies, your idea of girls' weekends might involve pillow fights, giggling, and hanging out in lingerie. In reality, girls' weekend is about four things: baggy pajamas, laughing so hard you make awkward snorting noises like a small feral hog, mimosas, and eating a truly obscene amount of tortilla chips. And on occasion, when your group is a mix of 90% bookworms and 50% former stars of high school plays, girls' weekend involves taking turns reading the most ridiculous passages from a giant stack of romance novels out loud to everyone: "Oh God, are those tentacles?!" It was about when we got to the tentacles that I remembered The Sins of the Amish.

A couple of years ago, I happened to mention to some friends at dinner that I had never read a romance novel. Since I enjoyed making fun of them, I thought I should probably read one. My friend, who we shall call Rose, said she could recommend one she'd really enjoyed. But there was a problem: Rose couldn't remember the title. So using keywords from her description of the plot, I tried to google it. I failed. But in the process I did discover a previously unknown subgenre: the Amish romance. At which point I decided that the only thing more fun than reading a romance novel centered on a religious group so conservative that you're not allowed to wear colors would be writing one. So I sat down and wrote the first chapter of "The Sins of the Amish."

Without further ado, I give you "The Sins of the Amish" Chapter One: Buggy Nights. . . .

As Ethelfrieda sensuously dipped her fingers into the rendered pig fat, she met Hans' searching gaze. 

'No,' she thought, 'Johann must be done castrating the spring lambs by now. He could walk in at any moment.' 

Deaf to her mental pleading, Hans took a step forward, the afternoon sun catching the sweat glistening on his bushy sternum-length beard. In that light he looked more like Sumerian warlord than an Amish cowherd. He stepped closer again, eyeing her hungrily. 

'No, Hans,' she said, 'I must make the offal pie.' 

'You are more tempting than any offal pie, Ethelfrieda,' he said. 

He reached out with both hands to undo the first hook-and-eye of the black wool dress she had fastened up to her chin. He silently cursed their ordnung's prohibition on buttons. It would take at least an hour to undress her. 

'Let's go to the buggy,' he said.

'No, Hans,' she said, 'we have defiled the buggy too often. Grand-uncle Yoder found your suspenders when he took the turnips to market last week. He suspects.' 

Hans banged his fist on the butcher block, sending the rendered pig fat sloshing out the sides of its 200 year old wooden mixing bowl. '

Yoder does not govern my passion!' he shouted. 

But she was right. Their love was verboten.