by Jess Bentley
The four aunties come with her, covered in their long, coarse, burgundy robes. The first two shuffle quickly ahead of Gina, taking their place in front of her. They walk with small steps between her and the dais on which Owen and I currently sit.
The other two roll the door closed behind her, shutting out the other curious faces. They want to watch. Of course they do. Some want to remember their own ceremonies. Some are fascinated, some are thrilled in an unseemly way.
But they're not allowed to watch, and they know it. They will disperse in a moment. The punishment for interfering in a sacred ceremony is nothing they want to risk.
The aunties take even, small steps as they approach. They are positioned two in front and two in back, like the four corners of a box. Gina is in the center… the jewel in the center of a box. The white, shining pearl transported slowly over the dusty, hard floor.
Owen swallows loudly, and I can hear the click of his Adam’s apple. He's sweating now. Eager, vibrating. Maybe too eager. Or maybe he's just more filled with spirit than I am.
How will I name her? Gina? Ginaaaaaa? I roll the word around in my mind, willing it to turn into something new. Nothing comes to me.
Her eyes are dark and laser focused on mine as she comes forward. She's trying to tell me she's not frightened. She's trying to reach out to me, to establish a connection. She’s acting like we will meet as equals.
It's not going to happen that way. For a moment I almost pity her.
The first two aunties reach the dais and mount the two small steps. They circle behind Brother Owen and me, sliding their hands over our shoulders, opening our robes at the neck. I feel the woman's fingers against my throat, tugging at the thick, tied cord until the knot loosens. She reaches around with both hands to open the robe in front of me, sliding it over my chest, laying my torso bare. I feel her lean toward me.
“Rise,” she says in a low voice in my ear, and I obey.
Brother Owen rises next to me. Our garments fall away as we stand at the edge of the dais. The aunties come up behind us and sweep the robes aside. I feel a hand snake over my hips and reach around to grasp my member, but I don't look down. I don’t need to see.
I'm looking at Gina. Her eyes widen with shock as she sees a man before her for the very first time. Brother Owen and I, exposed to this new woman. The two of us, facing forward, naked and erect, the first sight of this significance she's probably ever seen in her life.
Her pale, slender hands flutter to cover the lower half of her face as she stifles a gasp. Still, I can hear it. It's a small, animal noise. A mixture of shock, excitement and fear. It's a humble noise, for her.
I see the aunties glance sidelong at each other, silently congratulating each other that their plan is working. Gina is entering a new phase of life, one in which her arrogance, her impetuous bravado is unnecessary. She will learn humility. She will learn respect.
She’s going to start right now.
I barely feel the auntie’s fingers on my member, yet my body responds just the way it's supposed to. Vaguely I know she's drawn me to full erection. I almost see it reflected in Gina's eyes. She looks between me and Owen repeatedly, undoubtedly wondering what is about to happen.
I am also wondering. And from Owen's ragged breaths, I'm sure he is also wondering.
“What is… what are —” Gina begins to speak, her voice high-pitched and trembling.
“Quiet, girl,” one of the aunties hisses. She sidesteps, leaning down and snatching the hem of the back panel of Gina’s dress in one hand. With a practiced, twisting motion, she spirals the fabric into a thick rope, drawing it up to expose the long, taut lines of her backside.
The other auntie steps close to her from the other side, taking her left arm by the elbow and pushing it backward. Gina's jaw goes slack and she tries to pivot to see what they're doing. They hold her fast, quickly immobilizing her elbows behind her with the twisted fabric of her gown.
“Walk forward,” one of the women says.
“Wait… I thought we were — I mean, why are we —”
“Quiet, girl!”
To her credit, she immediately drops her eyes. Poor thing. She doesn't know. She will feel so much better shortly. But right now, all this unfamiliarity must be overwhelming for her.
A different auntie tips her head toward Gina's ear and buries her lips against her neck. I watch her cheeks move as she whispers something for long seconds, some womanly wisdom that works to soothe her fears. When she's done, Gina nods. Not emphatically, but enough. She understands.
We all understand, even if we don't know it yet.
That's the true purpose of this ceremony: to take us back to our purest knowledge. Before words, before lies in society. The truth is that God created the perfect, wordless animals. They knew without needing to be told. We only suffer because we are arrogant. It's only through humility that we become reunified with the holiness within us.
I hope that's what the auntie told her. That this ceremony will reunite her with her holiness. I hope that she understands. And I think she might. The way she's looking at me now is much steadier. Less like a spring lamb terrified, before the blade. More knowing.
She comes forward in three scuffling steps. She mounts the stairs and stands between us. The aunties take our shoulders then, moving our bodies so that Owen and I face her.
“Look at Father Daddy,” the voice behind me says. Gina pivots, lifting her chin toward me and blinking her big, brown eyes. Half-scared, but maybe… half-excited?
“That's good,” I tell her. I'm not supposed to speak but I want her to know she's doing well.
“Now look at Brother Owen,” comes the other auntie’s voice.
With far less hesitation, Gina pivots one hundred and eighty degrees to look at Owen. His chest is heaving, his cock rigid and glistening. He's staring quite intensely at her and I sense her stiffening, resorting to her natural arrogance.
“On your knees,” the other auntie tells her. She could sense it too. Gina’s attitude has to be made pliant. She has to be remolded. That's why it has to be this way. That's why we have to do what we’re doing.
“On my knees?”
“No more questions,” I tell her. She needs that. She needs a man's voice to guide her.
She drops to her knees, the sound dull but still distinct enough. I hear it like another step has been taken toward her new self. That hard texture against her soft flesh. The marks she’ll have for the next few days to remind her of her transformation.
“Open your mouth,” an auntie says. “And signal your willingness.”
I'm sure she does it, because Owen narrows his eyes at her, sucking his lips between his teeth. He leans forward.
I don't see it. I only watch the top of her head. She leans back and raises her eyes to meet mine. I'm standing behind her as she tips her head back, opening her mouth to take Brother Owen in that first, sweet breach. The first time a man has invaded her borders. The first time her outline has been crossed by our secret, holy flesh.
Owen lays the tip of his cock against her lower teeth, pulsing slightly there before pushing further in. Her pale pink lips stretch around his girth. When she begins to lean too far backward, the aunties catch her by the shoulders.
“Accept this flesh,” they murmur in low, practiced tones. These are our secret words, our whispered ritual.
“Accept this flesh,” they say again, “so that you may know the majesty of a man.”
Owen pulses again, his hips moving slightly, beginning that slow piston. He looks at me briefly, calculating his thrusts to make sure he's not too insistent with her, not too rough.
I shake my head slightly. Not too much. I need him to know that. She's developing nicely. We want her pliable. Not broken.
I see disappointment flash across his features. He never does get what he wants, does he.
“Accept this flesh,” they say again. I see Gina's nostrils flare slightly as her lips close firmly around Owen’s member.
/>
That's it. That's perfect. She's taken the initiative to submit to him.
He sees it too. With a sad smile, he withdraws, his cock still shiny from her spit. She rocks forward slightly, surprised.
“That's it?” she says. Her disappointment is adorable.
“Just a bit more,” the auntie says.
She loosens Gina's elbows as she lifts her back to standing. The other aunties come and rearrange her to face me. Gina blinks again and again. Her features flash. Her lips part as she breathes heavily. The aunties jostle her body back and forth, shaking out her arms to resume circulation there. Gina is transfixed as she stares at me, her chest heaving. She's ready now. I know she is.
The aunties take the front of her dress and sweep it to the side, then lay her down on the dais, facing away from me. Two aunties open her by the knees. Gina doesn't even look afraid anymore. She understands. She knows, even if she doesn't really know with words. She knows without words.
I shouldn't look, but I do. Where the aunties have opened her, that dark patch. That pink spreading. Her sex unfurls before me, opening sweetly like a mouth just gasping in surprise. A swipe of pale pink split by the deeper pink secret inside. Dripping, just a little. Fresh.
“Accept this flower,” the aunties whisper.
“Name this flower,” they whisper, as I drop to my knees in front of her. I rest my weight on my hands and arch over her, drawing my body parallel to hers, aiming for her center.
“Obedience,” I say clearly. The word leaps to my tongue as though placed there by someone else. It's a perfect name. Gina nods slightly, her dark curls falling onto the wooden floor behind her head.
“Obedience,” I sigh as I feel warmth grasping at the tip of my cock. It's tight. So tight. Yet welcoming. I push gently, so gently, yet just the weight of me will breach her entrance. She unfolds for me, crumpling like petals. I plunge to the center of this flower, taking its first sweet nectar for myself.
The auntie places the small wooden cross around her neck. Wood reaching for the sky, the celestial pole, held by the horizon of the world. Like a man held by a woman.
She gasps, and for one short second she meets my eyes. Something new is there. Pleasure. She groans then covers her mouth with her trembling hand. I feel her walls convulse around me, quivering in waves of orgasm.
Her eyes get even bigger, then shut tight as her legs wrap around my hips, pulling closer. I have to pull away now. The aunties are getting nervous.
She whispers something I can’t make out. I lean closer to her and put my ear to her mouth. Am I hurting her?
“More,” she pants. “More…”
I can’t give her what she wants — that’s for her Master — but I smile despite myself. It’s done.
She’s ready.
Chapter 60
Angel
As the sun goes down, I rush around our small house, trying to finish my chores. We've only got four rooms, five if you count the bathroom. Mama's room, my room, a living room and a kitchen. That's it. I know a lot of people have a lot more than that, but this is all that we need and wishing for more would be wrong.
Mama spent all day with Agatha and Mary in the reclamation shed, sifting through donated items, looking for things we could keep. It's kind of a funny thing that I bet most people around here don't know. Most of what we have was given to us, not made here or bought with money.
The people who live nearby donate huge amounts of clothes to us, dropping them off at the main gate in plastic bags that they fling toward the posts before they leave. We retrieve the bags and bring them to the reclamation shed, then pull out the things that would be useful for us. Bedsheets, towels. Sometimes scarves or table cloths. Mostly, were looking for the large pieces of cloth that we can use to make our garments. And there's not a lot of those in what we are given. Maybe five or six pieces out of every hundred?
When we find those, they are set aside to be laundered and given to the aunties in the sewing shed. Everything else goes back in a bag and one of the Masters will take it to the Salvation Army or the other Christian mission or something back in town. I have never seen the town. I’ve seen other towns in movies, sometimes in pictures in magazines. We get picture books too, and the occasional scrapbook with snapshots from all over the world. These items are not supposed to be kept but if they are donated, sometimes we will indulge. Just for a moment. Then we send them back out.
I bet the people who donated all this have no idea their stuff ends up somewhere else. Sometimes I wonder if they shop at the thrift stores and end up buying some of it back.
The house smells good, like bleach and Pine-Sol. My hands are gritty from being submerged in the soapy water for so long, but I am pleased with what I've done. The floors are clean, and the windowsills are free of dust or cobwebs. I even washed the little window over the kitchen sink that looks out over the tiny, messy garden. The sweet peas need to be picked. I have to do that in the morning.
I hear Mama on the front steps, her boots hard on the wooden slats. She comes in the door with a weary look on her face, the back of her hand already rubbing the space between her eyebrows. I turn away automatically because I want her to catch me in the act of doing housework, not just standing around. Never that.
“Dinner is started,” I let her know, hoping she can smell the pot of stew bubbling on our small gas stove. She nods, smiling weakly. Her job isn’t really that hard. Mostly it's gossiping and plotting with the other aunties, but she acts like she's been digging ditches all day.
“Did you find anything good?”
“Almost nothing,” she sighs as she shuffles toward the kitchen. I see her eyes dart around, taking in the work I've done, but she doesn't say anything about it.
“You'd be shocked what people throw away. Shocked.”
“Well, they're not really throwing it away, are they? They're donating it to us?”
She looks at me back over her shoulder, pushing her braid to the other side. Her eyes narrow slightly as she considers it. I can tell that she was repeating a conversation the aunties must have had several times over the course of the day. It sounded rehearsed. They must have all been shocked at what got thrown away, maybe holding pieces up and laughing, maybe spinning tales about people who previously owned the things we have been given. And I guess I'm the first person today to disagree.
“Go ahead and eat,” I offer.
She pulls a bowl down from the shelf and sits at the table after ladling out a couple spoonfuls of stew. Through the steam, she tips her head and stares at me. I shift from foot to foot, plucking at the long skirts that brush around my ankles.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“Oh, not today…” I shrug. “I had some tomatoes out of the garden earlier. Some porridge. Really, I'm stuffed.”
She tips her head forward, folding her hands over the wide metal spoon. Her lips move as she prays for an extraordinarily long time. I know she prayed this morning too. I could hear it when her knees hit the floor. But she just goes on and on. Why does she have so much to tell Him?
I hear people moving around outside and automatically glance over my shoulder. The procession has started. The sun isn't quite down yet, but people are gathering on our little dusty path, forming in small groups, exchanging excited snippets of conversation.
“You're not going out there,” Mama announces.
I cringe. I never should have looked at the procession. I never should have let her see what I wanted to do. I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.
“I just thought I'd walk along. Maybe find Tulip or Abbie and see how they were doing with their gardens, you know?”
“Don't you lie to me, girl,” she hisses, slurping back a mouthful of stew and pointing the spoon at me. The room is quickly becoming dark as the sun goes down, and I can't help it but feel like it's all becoming quite urgent.
“I'm not lying… well, I'm not trying to lie. Why would I lie about that? Everyone's allowed to go where they want, aren't we?�
��
She smirks triumphantly, as though I've admitted to something. “Yes, Angel, everyone's allowed to go where they will. But because you're not yet a woman, you're required to obey me.”
“I'm almost a woman,” I counter.
She shrugs and resumes eating.
“Almost is not the same as is,” she reminds me. “See, you get chosen for this ceremony, you don't get to insist. Father Daddy will decide when the time is right. It's as simple as that, Angel. You know that.”
I want to stretch. I want to hold my arms up or stomp my feet or something, but I know it won't do any good. It would only make this last longer. Mama has some say-so on when I'm chosen. She could delay the whole thing for another year she wants to, even though I'm older than most of the girls who have been through it.
Come to think of it, she must have asked somebody to leave me this way, to take care of the house and such for her. I’ll bet she told them she was ill or something.
Or maybe they just haven't gotten around to me. Maybe walking around without make up, dressed in what looks like a flour sack when it's hanging on the back of a door… maybe nobody noticed me at all.
Maybe they still think I'm seven or eight. Maybe when they look at all those other girls — those prettier, more outgoing girls with their wild hair, their curves blossoming so suddenly and drastically they practically burst out of their shifts like over-ripened fruit, spilling seeds from the top of the tree…. Maybe they have never seen me, at all.
I can't disobey her. She's right. It's against the rules and if she says I have to be here, that takes precedence over my right to wander around like any other Kingdom Come member.
“All right then,” I finally mumble and sit in a chair by the window. I pull my knitting out and start working on the blue scarf I've been messing around with for the last week. This way I'm working, even if I'm stealing a glance here and there at the people outside the window.
