Thoughts flickered in her mind, darting in and out of her consciousness like seabirds skimming the surface of the ocean but never settling. Her mind warred with her body. One thinking, questioning; would it hurt? Would God punish her for sodomy? Did she want this?
Her flesh paid no attention to her thoughts and simply processed these new sensations; the way the silky velvet tip of his cock head felt pressing against her asshole, the sound of his breathing, increasingly labored, the warmth of his saliva as he pulled away for a moment, spat on her and used his fingers to work the lubricant into her hole. He repeated this process again and again until she was wet and relaxed enough for him to slide inside. Just an inch, at first. He held still, and she held her breath. She exhaled and relaxed a little more and he slid a little further inside her. Eventually, the full length of his shaft was buried inside her ass, and she was rocking back and forward against him, pushing her rear up against his groin, encouraging him to thrust deeper and deeper. He was holding onto her hips now, one hand on either side of her buttocks. His thrusts becoming faster, more urgent.
Sarah did not want him to go limp again and leave her empty and aching for more, as he had in the car earlier. She scooted her left arm across in front of her to center her body and with her right hand she delved between her folds. A soft hiss escaped her lips, the sound of an out breath through her teeth at the sheer relief she took in pleasuring herself. Tom hadn’t even noticed. He was kneading her buttocks in his hands, pulling away and half slapping her in his effort to hold her hips in place as his pumping became more frenzied.
Sarah found her rhythm, quick circular strokes over her nub, occasionally dipping into her well to wet her fingertips before sliding through her furrow again and applying just the right degree of pressure to her clitoris, the peculiar physics of self love.
But she was too late, or too slow, or rather, Tom was too quick. He lasted far longer than he had the first time, perhaps because it was his second release in a few hours, or maybe because the circumstances were less hurried. When he came, he collapsed against her and she fell forward. Instinctively, she drew her right hand away from it’s position between her thighs and threw it out in front of her to catch her balance.
The ache of her frustration was a sharp knife twist, rapid and cutting. His cock softened and flopped out of her as he pulled away.
He stepped out of the tub and the water rippled and splashed around her.
She didn’t turn to look at him.
“Dry yourself,” he said, “and come to bed.” She heard the soft whump of a towel hitting the wooden floorboards nearby.
After their wedding night, Tom could barely bring himself to touch Sarah. When they made love, which happened rarely, he would simply roll on top of her, spend his seed, and roll away.
Sometimes as she was dressing, she felt his eyes on her, drinking her in as though she were the only pool of water in a desert, but when she glanced back at him, he turned his head away. They lay next to each other in bed at night as stiff as boards, and she felt as though her limbs were frozen in place by her sides. She wanted to reach over and touch him but there was an insurmountable wall between them that even the full strength of her lust could not breach.
Sarah stopped touching herself. The weight of Tom’s disapproval was too great. She felt as though he had turned her hands to lead. She found no outlet for it, nor respite from it, but her desire never waned.
Then the drought started. At first, it was just a dry spell, an Indian summer, an absence of rain. But gradually the things that grew on the land around them began to droop and wither. Then the ground began to crack in places as though it was tearing away from itself. Even the air felt parched, and the wind that blew clouds of dust up in flurries carried with it a faint metallic aroma, a scent of death and decay. It was as though the earth had a thirst that could never be quenched, and knew it.
Finally, the river that ran around the church dried up. At first, it just shrank away a little from the edges, but before long, what had once been a clean, wide ribbon, clear as glass and swift as quicksilver flowing across the land turned the color of an old leather shoe and stopped moving. For a while, it took on the appearance of a dirty wound cutting through the fields, like a deep scratch from a rusty blade that refused to heal.
Twice, she heard water running—a sound that was unmistakable now, since everyone’s ears keened to hear that steady rush—and filling a bath to bathe was prohibited, since the reservoirs were so low. She crept down the stairs and padded softly to the bathroom and listened. Mingled with the sound of the flowing tap she heard Tom’s soft, desperate moans, and a steady, moist slap, slap, slap; the sound of a pot of thick porridge on a heavy, rolling boil. It was a noise she hadn’t heard before and yet instinctively she knew what it was. It was a sound that made her feel like a voyeur. Her eyes widened, and she smoothed her hair back from her face and hurried away, padding quickly towards the kitchen on the soft naked soles of her feet.
Tom preached fervently about how the dry soil reflected the community’s lack of spiritual richness. That the rain would come when they repented and God forgave their sins. They were all at fault, he said, in that voice of his that boomed like thunder, but Sarah felt as though he was speaking only to her. This is your fault, his voice seemed to say, for wanting more. For wanting, always. For she felt as empty and wanting as the land was dry, her desire as strong as the rush of a waterfall and twice as deep as the deepest ocean.
And while the sun baked everything else in it’s path, Sarah was about the only thing in town that did not take on the appearance of clay that’s spent too long in a potter’s kiln.
She was luminous, in a pale pink dress, the color of cotton candy, with the flush that always colored her cheeks, her eyes big, round and long-lashed like a doe, and her hair as thick and blonde and bouncing as it had been when she was a toddler. Her skin was quite fair and she did not tan, no matter how long she spent outdoors. Although her preference for a large brimmed straw hat with a wide ribbon that tied around her narrow chin, long skirts and a light shawl to cover her arms, meant that it was rare for her skin to see the sun.
Her breasts had grown so full that they ached, and the dresses and blouses that had previously sat loose and modest over her chest now visibly struggled to restrain the weight of her bosom. Her nipples were permanently hard, and formed stiff nubbins, apparent through the cloth that covered them. The natural pallor of her skin, which in her childhood had drawn suggestions of anemia and marked her out as different from the other children who ran over fields in the afternoon and returned brown as Indians, now took on the strength of marble, the glow of a full moon in a cloudless sky. The wetness that seeped between Sarah’s legs in a constant flow now permeated her whole being. She was like a white skinned, over ripe plum. Given one gentle caress she would burst, and rain her thick juices over everything in her path.
She attracted glances as she walked through town and sat listening to Tom’s sermons. From men—and more than a few women—who, by the look in their eyes, craved to be near her, to soak up some of the moisture that radiated from her into the air. The gossip moved in turns. At first, they referred to her as a blushing bride. Then it was rumored that perhaps she bore a child. But as time passed and her belly retained its flatness, the current of gossip became quieter and more severe. Whispers moved in eddies, pooling in dark places.
Sarah observed the idle chatter between the older women. Some of them had taken to wearing headscarves, folded triangles of brightly colored cloth perched on the tops of the heads so they resembled aging birds, like squat owls with one contrary bright plumage. They did not speak to her anymore.
She had traveled to the end of that long road now, from an innocence and youthful enthusiasm that they could pet and mold to womanhood, but it was apparent that on reaching the end of that journey she had not become one of them. They stared at her with bright raisin eyes and thi
n lips and did not say a word. But the horror of their disapproval, all the things that remained unspoken, hung over her like a cloud. She spent more and more time alone.
She had nothing to do besides cook and clean, for that was the way of things. Without water, or with very little of it, cleaning became harder, and took longer. As the pastor’s wife, Tom said, it was up to her to set an example. So, even though nobody else was there to see her, she did not use a mop and bucket to clean the floors but rather she got down on her knees with a small brush and scrubbed, sometimes using spit to moisten the dust, or the juice of a lemon. She polished the wooden floors with a soft cloth and a few spoonfuls of vegetable oil.
It was a hot day in July, and Sarah was on all fours scrubbing the wide expanse of their open kitchen and dining room. She was in the center of the floor with her skirts spread around her like a child’s ballerina toy. Beams of morning sun filtered through the tall glass windows and sent lines of light flooding across the room, interspersed with darker beams of shadow, trapping her in the center like a canary in a dappled cage. She wore the lemon yellow dress that had once been her favorite for church, but was now relegated to home use only, since her breasts now spilled overtop of the bodice. Before she married, the shade—and few could wear it—had simply suited her. Now, with its thick rope of white embroidered edging, and the peculiar gleam of her skin, it gave her the look of a lemon meringue pie. Sweet and soft and lush, inviting a hungry mouth to take a bite of her moist flesh.
The floorboards that felt so smooth when she walked across them barefoot took on the texture of concrete beneath her knees. She had come across a darker fleck of unidentifiable grime that could not be shifted. Perhaps it was a fleck of burned food, or soil that had found it’s way inside, although Tom was fastidious about brushing off his clothes and shoes before he set foot in the house. She stopped, leaned back on her hind and drew her hand across her brow in a gesture that spoke of resignation, although she had not yet given up. Then, emboldened by the brief pause she spread her legs further apart to steady her center of gravity, leaned forward and scrubbed harder, putting so much of her body weight into each stroke of the brush that her arm and shoulder moved back and forth like a piston.
Through it all she was aware of the moisture that gathered between her thighs, as it always did. She no longer wore undergarments, unless she was out in public. They were just more clothes to wash, and they didn’t have the water for that. With her legs spread like they were, and her body hinging back and forward she had raised a gentle breeze that brushed against her bare cunt, like the gentle pads of invisible fingers stroking her softly.
One patch of floor complete, she scooted back, revealing the square of flooring that she had been kneeling over. A pool of fluid had gathered there. Sarah placed her palms on either side, bowed her head down like a dog and sniffed it, then lapped a little up on her tongue. The liquid was slightly more viscous than water, but not as thick as oil. It was almost, but not quite odorless. The only one other time that she had tasted her juices, they had been mixed with Tom’s, and carried the metallic, sea salt tang of oysters, and a slight quinine bitterness. Her fluid alone had a faint aroma that she could not relate to anything else. It made her think of the earth. Cloying, damp soil, thick with life. A place of darkness and light, like the odor that might emanate from the thickest, most impenetrable jungle, the scent of things growing. The taste was mild and sweet. She could have drunk a cup of it, and felt her thirst quenched forever.
Sarah bowed her head again, still supporting her body with the palms of her hands, so from above, her shoulders knotted, folding in on themselves like an angel without wings, like a pilgrim prostrating in prayer. She drank from the spring of her own fount, and when she was done, she rose up and walked outside. There, she stood on a patch of cracked dry soil, spread her legs, and let the wetness that continued to spread from her cunt rain down over what was left of her herb garden.
She had grown chervil here, lacy lime green bushes that stood two feet tall at least and spread in thick, cloudy bushes like a forest of carrot tops that she couldn’t cut back quick enough, no matter how many salads she garnished. She’d cut bunches of it, tied them with twine and taken them to church, the smell of aniseed lingering on her palms long after she had given the posies away. There had been rosemary here too, a whole shrub of it, and sprawling patches of mint and thyme. Now, what was left of the herb garden resembled the burning bush that had troubled Moses, after the flame had passed through it. The earth was cracked underfoot and where the remnants of plants lay there were either brown sticks that crumbled into dust with the slightest pressure or a tangle of withered, soft brown stems, too fragile to hold up even the weight of the dead leaves they still carried.
Droplet upon droplet pearled down from her and soaked into the earth below. She stood there and enacted this private rainstorm until the bright orange yolk of the sun began to disappear behind the pines that ran along the skyline around the house and she heard the crunch of tires on driveway gravel as the car turned in with Tom at the wheel.
Sarah gathered her skirts and ran inside, before he saw her and asked what she was doing. She needn’t have worried. Tom was so caught up in himself that he didn’t even notice that she had only half finished the floors and hadn’t started dinner. Sarah reheated soup, made from their store of root vegetables, mixed with grains, and fried pieces of yesterday’s bread in dripping. Tom went straight upstairs to change out of his stiffly starched suit and wipe the dust from his face. As she filled his bowl, she had the urge to spit into it, but she didn’t. By the time he returned, ready to eat, she had set the table with a linen cloth and put away the brushes that she had been using to clean the floor. She didn’t have time to change out of the yellow dress. He sat down, pulled his chair close to the table and glanced at her, his eyes automatically focusing on the wide expanse of her cleavage. He blinked, and looked away.
“How were they today?” she asked him.
Tom had been out proselytizing to the communities around them, blaming the weather and the subsequent failure of the crops on their lack of faith. Some folk listened. He was an engaging speaker. Some believed. Others told him to get the hell out, and he moved on nonplussed to the next location and tried again.
“The Earth is full of lawlessness,” he replied, quoting from Genesis. He held a hunk of fried bread in both hands and tore chunks from it with his teeth so fiercely that his head lashed from side to side as he pulled back between bites. Sarah shrunk back into her seat. Then she thought of her herb garden, moistened with the fluid of her desires, and straightened her back. That earth, she thought, was full of lawlessness. Lawlessness, lasciviousness, licentiousness, libidinous lust. She brought her spoon to her lips and swallowed.
That night she was not plagued by violent dreams, nor by the ache in her loins that caused her to lie awake long after Tom started snoring, a soft wheezing sound, akin to an old man’s death rattle. When she did sleep, she slept the long torpor of the untroubled, and awoke to the sound of Tom’s startled cry, and the clatter of his footsteps taking the stairs to their bedroom two at a time.
His voice was joyful.
“Sarah! Sarah!” he cried. The door flung open as he pushed it so hard it hit the wall behind with a bang. It was the first time that he had called her by name in as long as she could remember.
“Get up,” he said, and he pulled her by the hand, down the stairs and out the door, not even stopping to insist that she pull on a robe to cover her nightgown. “Look!” he shouted, pointing downwards in the manner of a prophet delivering a curse. His forefinger jutting taut, his fist clenched, his whole arm shaking. The subject of his gaze was Sarah’s herb garden. What had, the previous afternoon, been a dry patch of withered sticks had blossomed overnight. The soil was dark and moist, and punctuated by new green shoots that had sprung to the surface, seeking light. Tom fell to his knees, cupped his hands together and lifted a scoop
of the damp loam up, holding it aloft like an offering to the heavens. He began to pray.
“A miracle,” he muttered. “We have been blessed.”
He ran to the water tank at the back of the property. They collected their own water, as well as using the town reservoir supply, but it had not rained in months and the tank had long been dry. He heaved the hinged covering up and held it there for a few moments, then lowered it down again with the reverence of an undertaker closing a casket.
He turned to face her. His face had turned deathly pale.
“It’s full,” he said. “The tank is full.”
“But it hasn’t rained?” she replied.
“Silly woman,” he said to her, “lacking faith, even after this.” His hands gesticulated wildly. “Are you so blind that you cannot see? This is the work of God. A message from God.”
Word spread through the town and the towns around them and people came to see for themselves the miracle of the garden that grew in the drought and the tank that filled with rain when the skies had been wrung out for months. Their neighbors came from far away with buckets and begged to be allowed to fill a pail and take it home. They blessed Tom and Sarah to their faces, but chattered like a flock of magpies behind their backs about the charismatic pastor, his pale, beautiful wife and the miracle that had occurred, but only for the benefit of the red-roofed house on the hill.
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