William H. Baker

He knew his wife despised the kisses because she would sometimes tell a girlfriend on the telephone that she feared ‘the threat of sex’ like she feared the devil. He knew, but he, William H. Baker, continued to request them.

Upon his arrival home from his occupation as a bank teller, he would request a kiss. His wife, awaiting verbal retribution lest she refuse, would reluctantly nuzzle her cheeks into the most notable of his features and the culprit of her fears: his mustache.

William H. Baker was known for the mustache that could’ve funded the French-Indian fur trade. It was the mustache that grazed passersby, the mustache that fueled his pride and joy and even status on the social hierarchy of Barnesville, Ohio bank employees, and the mustache that repulsed his poor wife. It was this gray, wiry, and matted crescent moon that his wife feared as much as she hated. She, however, also understood his rationale. What man would relinquish such a weapon when he in other ways was quite unarmed?

It was for this reason—these reasons, I should say—that she—after Thanksgiving dinner, a bottle of malbec, and a lively conversation with his clean-lipped brother—decided that she actually did feel infatuation and love—when not held at mustache-point, that is.

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