by Jess Bentley
She takes a few steps in and then stops, shifting foot to foot as she looks all around. She takes in the long bench along one side, with a stack of woolen blankets at one end. I can see her figuring out that the shack is sometimes used as a sleeping pen. Sometimes, when the situation makes that seem appropriate.
On another wall are three simple shelves with a Bible, some candles, and a few stacked bowls. There's a chair leaning against the wall. A squat, wooden chair with a worn, bowed seat.
“Should I…” Her hand drifts toward the chair, floating in the air.
“No, you kneel,” I instruct her. I slide past her, careful not to brush against her or her skirts. She's not to be touched. “On the plank. There.”
As I drop into the chair, she looks around, squinting into the gloom. Finally she sees it: the low platform where she is supposed to place her knees and confess all of her sins to me.
Here in the dark. Just us.
She begins to kneel, her eyes trying to find mine in the darkness. It's not appropriate.
“You need to face away from me,” I tell her, pointing at the far wall. She stops and jerks back upright, then shuffles in an awkward half circle and finally kneels on the plank. Her long skirts tumble over her calves, exposing her ankles and the dusty, pink bottoms of her feet.
“What… um, what do I do next?”
Suddenly, I'm not quite sure what to tell her. I know what the ritual is supposed to be, but I am not the one who is supposed to instruct her in it. I probably should have let one of the aunties bring her out here, and I'm not sure why I didn't. Her first confession should be taken by one of her kind, another woman. Once she's broken in, and once she’s officially a woman, then she can come to me to hear her real secrets. The sort of secrets an adult would want to hide. The secrets of children are for the aunties, not for me.
I remember her mother, Melissa, in much the same situation. When I brought her here, invited her to stay, the compound was almost brand new. We were still making a lot of mistakes. We hadn't finalized the rituals of confession, and Melissa took up much of my time.
Did I mind? No. She was a beauty, much like this one here. But she was spoiled, ruined, haunted by her transgressions. Though we worked through each sin together, untangling them like knotted thread, so much of her past encroached upon Kingdom Come’s goodwill.
I paid off her bookie, her drug dealer, and a boyfriend that I suspect was more of a pimp. Melissa alone cost our community more than any other three members combined.
She was beautiful. Not like now, when she's bitter, poisoning herself on her own bad feelings. She’s almost the opposite of Angel, who has none of that baggage. She feels encumbered, I can tell, but she really isn't. She's as carefree as any other innocent. Her burden is proof of her innocence, unlike Melissa. There's really nothing Angel could have done. I can't even imagine it.
“Father Daddy?” she begins, dragging me back to the situation in front of me. “What do I do next?”
I cough gently into my hand. I have to say something.
“First, you pray to God for the strength to tell me everything. Do that now.”
Her head drops forward automatically. Her hair falls over her shoulders, exposing the triangle of soft skin at the nape of her neck. Small ridges of her bones push through, a softly undulating shape under the downy flesh there.
Finally she lifts her head back up.
“Amen,” she whispers.
“Now you tell me what you need to tell me.”
“Everything?” she asks, her voice quaking.
“It's a sin to leave anything out. Tell me everything.”
She takes a deep breath. I hear it shudder in her chest. Her shoulders work slightly. She must be wringing her small, delicate hands together. I almost want to chuckle. What could she possibly have done that could be so bad?
“Father Daddy, I believe there may be a demon inside me,” she says, her voice rising to a squeak at the end.
I cover my mouth with my hand, trying to respect her feelings. This poor child. How could she possibly believe such a thing?
“What makes you think so?”
“It's just… I'm not sure… I don't think I can say.”
I lean forward slightly in the chair. I can still smell the white soap.
“Tell me everything, Angel.”
She takes another deep breath, then another. I hear her sniffle, as though she has started to cry.
“When Gina… Obedience, I mean… When she had her ceremony with you I — oh, I can't!”
“Angel!” I bark at her. I'm beginning to lose patience with this, which is starting to sound like a rather childish game to get my attention. “What does this have to do with Gina? Obedience, I mean?”
She sniffles several times. “I… saw you,” she whispers.
I can't believe what I'm hearing. What is this?
“Angel, what are you saying? You saw what?”
Her shoulders shudder. “I — I snuck out of our house and went to the far side of the barn… There's a gap in the barn boards there and I… I didn't mean to, Father Daddy! I promise I didn't mean to see!”
My hands grip the armrests of my simple chair. “You didn't mean to see what? Angel, tell me everything!”
“You… and Brother Owen. You were there, with her. The aunties were there, and took off your clothes. And you were… with her. I mean, first Brother Owen was… I don't know. Something. Something with her mouth. And then you…”
Her voice trails off but I wave my hand in the air. “That's quite enough,” I tell her sharply.
“I didn't mean to do it!”
My jaw clenches. I can’t stand people who won’t take responsibility for their actions.
“I think we both know that's not true, Angel. And I don't think blaming a demon for your actions is anything but cowardly.”
Her shoulders shake violently as she mumbles something else under her breath.
“What did you say?”
My irritation is building. I should try to be more understanding, but I dislike when people evade and avoid the purifying therapy of the rituals. It’s good for them. Why can’t they see it?
“I said, that wasn't the… um, that's not the demon,” she whimpers pitifully.
My eyes search the ceiling. I really should not be in here with her. Especially not if she witnessed the deflowering ceremony. This is not the way things are supposed to go. I should be away from her. What did I even want to come here in the first place?
“Please go on, Angel,” I advise her. “Please just unburden yourself.”
After a few moments, she seems to calm herself.
“The demon didn’t make me watch you. And I was punished for that already. My mother found me. She whipped me and made me stay in the house for several days. But I… couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop imagining the ceremony, and your…”
Her voice trails off again. I'm leaning forward, a little too eager to hear what she has to say. What did she think of that? She sounds frightened, certainly, but there's something else. Curiosity? Excitement?
“I began to wonder if I could be as… with you, I mean. Like Obedience was. You know, when you…”
“All right, that's enough,” I snap. What is it she's asking me to do here?
“And so, I know that I shouldn't have, but I touched myself, you know, there? Just to see. Just to try to see, I promise!”
“Try to see what?”
She holds her hands up in the air, her fingers softly curling against the dim light.
“Well you were just so big, you know? And I was wondering if I would be able to have something so big… you know… against my flower?”
I swallow. My mouth as suddenly as dry as the dusty air.
“And so I tried. Just with my hands, just to try to understand. And that's when… I felt it.”
“Felt what?” I hear myself croak.
“Oh, I've never felt anything like it before, I promise. It came on
upon me totally by surprise, as though it's been inside me this whole time. Like a hot, coiled thing. Like a snake that suddenly unwound itself and filled me with venom. I could feel it, so hot everywhere. In every part of my body."
Shake my head. The light catches her all around in a sort of dusty halo. Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?
I try to imagine it: her laying in her bed, her fingers blindly seeking her flower, before nature overwhelms her. Before her nascent desires bloom, unbidden, taking over her body by surprise.
My heart is beating fast. I know exactly what she's describing. Something in me desperately wishes I'd been there to see it.
“Angel, I don't believe you have a demon inside you,” I tell her slowly.
“But it was there! I could feel it! So hot, so furious! I was possessed!”
“Enough!”
My cock throbs against the front of the trousers that I wear on sermon days. I feel the teeth of the zipper imprinting along the underside of my shaft. When is the last time I was this hard? When is the last time that I simply wanted to give in to this kind of magnetism?
“I'm sorry! I’m so ashamed!”
She falls forward, catching herself with her palms against the wood floor. On all fours, she sobs pitifully, her body quaking under the thin cotton dress. I can easily imagine slipping up behind her, sliding my arm around her tiny waist, pulling her round buttocks against the bulge in my pants…
“You're forgiven,” I tell her hoarsely. “Thank you so much for telling me. Now you should go.”
She sniffles, hard. “Um, what?”
“You should go. You're completely forgiven. We'll talk about this another time, but tell no one else.”
She starts to look over her shoulder at me, and my heart lurches. I don't want her to see me. I'm sure what I am feeling would be as plain as day in my expression.
“Go, now!”
She heaves to her feet obediently, pushing the door open with a bang. As her figure hurries up the hill, I feel the pressure begin to abate.
That was close. I almost lost myself to carnal impulses. The image was crystalline in my mind, so compelling I almost acted on it. So close. I can't be alone with this one. I can't be expected to give her the deflowering ceremony either, come to think of it. How could I be sure to control myself?
The duties will have to fall to Owen. At least that way, I won’t be tempted further. He can breach her, open her into the ways of the Family.
But as soon as I think it, I know I will never let that happen. That can’t be the way it is either. The thought of another man is unacceptable. Not right in front of me.
Maybe he was right. Maybe we really should allow her to pay off her mother's debt. That burden is hard for Kingdom Come to absorb, and it sets a bad example to keep letting it go, unchallenged.
Letting one of the local men have a chance with her, perhaps that is how she would best be of service. The money would help, and I wouldn’t have to grapple with the lust in my heart any longer. The temptation would simply be removed.
Here in the compound, she’s learned so many good skills and qualities that a woman should have. The sorts of things women in the outside world have lost over time: cooking, sewing, caring for children. Most of all, our women understand their place in the hierarchy of a family. They understand their role as willing, pliant helpmeets to their men.
And I admit, I am aware that her lack of presence in the outside world is another asset to them. I’m sure Dustin is well-aware that Angel has no birth certificate, no Social Security card. Her mother had her somewhere outside a hospital and couldn’t be bothered to get those documents for her.
As far as the outside world is concerned, Angel doesn’t even exist. She’s a free spirit, totally outside the realm of men.
I can’t help but think of Rose, the last woman who left in Dustin’s care. She wasn’t like Angel — pure, sweet, undocumented. But no one was looking for her. In fact, no one had heard from her in over a year when I received her papers back in a brown envelope, left under my door.
No explanation, nothing. No one knew to look for her, so no one had. I wonder what her last days were like. I hope she was sky high. That’s the best I can hope for.
But certainly, it’s not always like that. Our county has always done a black market trade in young ones. They’re good for keeping house, and good for keeping company. Runaways always seem to know that they can come here and end up one of two places: Dustin’s or Kingdom Come.
So with that tradition, I have to think that Angel is just as likely to fall in the care of someone who will treat her kindly. Someone who’s willing to help the compound with our earthly requirements. Perhaps it will be a good trade. Perhaps it is our only option.
Perhaps.
Chapter 66
Angel
I run away from the confession shack as quickly as I can, paying no attention to the sharp thorns and brambles that slash at the bottoms of my feet. He told me to go, and I have to get away.
Do I feel better? Do I feel purged of sin? I'm not sure. Confession is supposed to improve us. It’s supposed to lift the burden of our sins, but I don't know if I did it right. I still feel twisted up and confused about everything that's happened.
And I still don't know what to believe. It was not a demon? Then what was it?
Almost everyone has left the area of the sermon barn, returning to their jobs or homes. Automatically I look for my mother, but I'm sure she's already working in the reclamation shack or the quilting barn. There's always a lot of work for the aunties to do.
“Hey, what do you think you're doing?”
I flinch back from the sound. Seth sidles around the corner of the barn, smiling at me as though he knew I was coming.
“It's none of your business, Seth,” I hiss at him as I pivot on my heel and try to walk back the other way. He catches me around the arm and pulls at me.
“You can't talk like to me like that, you know!”
He snarls like a cornered animal, his foul breath close to my ear. “I'm a man. Men don't tolerate that kind of disrespect!”
I jerk my arm away, stumbling backward a few feet along the long side of the barn. He keeps walking toward me slowly, his chin down, a gleam in his eyes.
My heels bark against stones in the dirt, but I’m determined not to wince. “You just watch yourself, Seth,” I warn him.
His swagger is weird and off-balance, like he just learned how to do it. I can't believe he's got this attitude with me. He's grown so fast that his trousers are way up over his ankles, revealing filthy, knobby flesh, all pale and lashed with scabs from walking through the weeds.
“Watch myself do what?” he singsongs like a little kid.
He's teasing me, thinking I'm going to get afraid of him. But I'm not afraid of him. He is still just a scrawny little jerk on the inside. On the outside, he’s barely anything you could call a man. He’s spindly and weak. Spineless. Cowardly.
“You just need to act right. You can’t treat an innocent like this, Seth. You’re lucky I don’t tell Mary how you’re talking to me. I have to be going now,” I huff.
I try to turn away again and feel his bony fingers snatch up my sleeve. Automatically I yank my arm back, but he is using those long legs to shift to the other side of me. Before I know what's happening, he has caged me in, his arms and legs boxing me against the side of the barn.
“Seth, knock it off,” I choke out, but my voice sounds strange. Some feeling rises in me, an acidic sensation that tells me something has gone very wrong. The situation has gone sideways off the path, skidding into a ditch. He really is bigger than me, I realize. And stronger than I would have guessed. I can’t get away.
“You need to learn a lesson,” he growls, reaching down with one hand and yanking at my skirt. He shoves his arm against my leg, squeezing me hard just over my knee and pulling my legs apart.
“You stop that right now!” I try to say, but I'm not sure the words got all out. Outrage
, terror, and anger slosh through me. I’m overwhelmed by this mysterious feeling of being frozen, unable to move. Like in my worst nightmares, all of my body parts have suddenly turned to concrete, and I can't figure out how to run away.
“That's right, Angel,” he grunts, his breath oily and sick against my bare neck. I feel his hand drifting upward as he jams his hips against me. I should have known how strong he'd be. I feel as weak as a weed, crushed under his weight.
Something in his pants is hard and pointy, poking painfully against my belly. He fumbles at the front of his pants, trying to expose it.
I close my eyes tight, not knowing what's going to happen, but knowing it's going to be awful. I don’t want to be here. I want to be asleep, or away, or unconscious. I don't want to live through this. I don't wanna…
And then daylight.
My eyes open again and I try to make sense of what I'm seeing. It’s Father Daddy. Seth is tumbling off to my left, falling in slow motion while his arms pinwheel frantically. He looks a doll that's been kicked in a game. Eventually he hits the dirt, right on his backside with his ankles shooting up into the air like a poorly drawn cartoon.
“You're okay, right, Angel? Tell me you're okay.”
My eyelids flutter as I look up and see Father Daddy standing over me. His teeth are bared as he searches my body, probably looking for signs of injury.
It is all starting to sort of make sense. He must have taken Seth by the scruff of the neck and just tossed him like the mangy little runt that he is. Just tossed him away into the weeds.
“I'm — I'm okay,” I stammer, not entirely sure that's true. I feel the bruise starting above my knee where his hand clawed at me. Another bruise. How humiliating.
“Annie!” Father Daddy barks out. Annie appears from somewhere and comes to me. She looks concerned at first but scowls judgmentally as soon as Father Daddy’s eyes are elsewhere. I see the sneer flash across her features as she sniffs, disgusted. I probably look a mess. I’m dirty, with bits of weeds all over my skirt, crushed into the wrinkles, and now the stink of Seth on me too.
