by Jack Geurts
And with the addition of the roaring fire, you could cut the sexual tension with a knife.
*
In the morning, Rachel takes Jake the rest of the way to Haran, along with the traumatised flock of sheep who had been forced to bear witness to their incestuous lovemaking.
As they approach her father’s house, they notice that the doors and windows have been sealed up with wooden boards. One of the shepherds emerges from behind a low wall running along the roof, holding a bow with the arrow drawn back, ready to fire.
“Don’t come any closer,” he says. “I’m warning you.”
Jake stops, Rachel with him.
“Rach, what are you doing? Get away from him.”
“Rach is there?” someone else says. A second later, the other shepherd stands up, holding his own bow. When he sees Rachel, he breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Christ. I thought he must’ve killed you and devoured your corpse.”
Rachel frowns, glances at Jake. “What is it with you guys?” Then, to the shepherds, she goes, “And thanks for bailing on me, you assholes.”
The shepherds exchange a sheepish glance.
Another guy stands up. This one’s older, and Jake has no doubt that it’s his uncle Laban.
“What do you want?” Laban says, eyeing Jake suspiciously. “Have you come to kill me? To steal my flocks? To have your demonic ways with me while I lay naked and hog-tied over a barrel?”
Jake frowns. Rachel frowns. The shepherds frown at each other behind Laban’s back.
Da fuck?
“Uh...No, actually,” Jake says, clearing his throat. “I came here to marry your daughter.”
Rachel smiles and loops her arm through Jake’s, kissing him on the cheek.
Laban frowns. The shepherds lower their bows.
“This has all been a misunderstanding,” says the newcomer. “I’m Jake, Becca’s son.”
There’s a flash of recognition in Laban’s eyes.
But it’s not a good flash.
He remembers all too well the circumstances of his sister’s departure. The kidnapping. The counterfeit silver he was paid for her dowry.
Laban’s eyes narrow, the gears turning in his mind.
“Well, in that case...” He plasters a jolly smile onto his face and holds his arms out wide. “Welcome, nephew, to the Casa de Laban. Let us celebrate this joyous occasion. Might as well leave those boards up, ‘cause this place about to get trashed.”
As you might remember, the last engagement party we saw in this house ended with Laban’s dad, Huell, drunkenly attempting to throw a knife and hit an apple balancing on Laban’s head.
As you may have been able to predict, that did not end well.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Huell died of liver cirrhosis long ago.
That, and a knife through the eye from an impatient loanshark. Yes, Huell had some gambling debts. Again...shocker.
I only bring this up so you’re not caught off guard when Jake and Rachel’s engagement party results in several broken bones, a shaved head and a completely-ruined house.
In the morning, Jake lifts his head groggily from the wreckage to find another woman, Leah (again, no nickname needed – way to make things easy, the Bible) cleaning up the place. Everyone’s still passed out cold, including Rachel, who he may or may not have slept with – he can’t remember.
He rises shakily to his feet, holding his head. “Jesus...”
Leah sees him, gives him a disapproving up-and-down, then continues sweeping up shattered clay jars.
“Can I help you with anything?” he says.
“No, don’t trouble yourself.”
Sensing resentment, he tries to break the ice. “I’m Jake, by the way.”
“I know who you are.”
Jake frowns. He doesn’t remember meeting her.
She notices this, stops sweeping and puts a hand on her hip. “You burst into my room in the middle of the night and shook me awake to introduce yourself, said we were going to be brother- and sister-in-law. Then you and Rachel proceeded to have sex in my bed, with me still in it.”
Jake gives himself a mental high-five, then realises Leah’s waiting for some sort of apology.
“Oh, uh, sorry about that.”
“I’m sure.” She continues sweeping.
At that moment, Rachel lifts her very hungover and newly-shaven head (yes, Rachel was the one who got her head shaved), rubbing her bare palm across the stubble and giggling. “Holy shit...”
Leah just shakes her head, unimpressed. She doesn’t expect anything more from her sister.
After all, Rachel was always the more outgoing one. She worked with the men, drank with the men. She was the captain of the cheerleading team – Leah was the nerdy girl with glasses.
Don’t worry – just like all terrible rom-coms, Leah’s going to take those proverbial glasses off at one point and suddenly be the hottest thing anyone’s ever seen.
I always liked the glasses, personally.
#mytwocents
*
A little later, everyone’s having breakfast and piecing together the previous night in a Rashomon-style act of collective remembering. They’re all laughing and groaning with embarrassment and generally having a great old time.
The only one not present is Leah. Laban’s other daughter.
Well, that’s not entirely accurate. She is present. She’s just not a part of their shenanigans.
You see, Leah’s the one making the breakfast.
Yes, that’s right. After cleaning the entire house – during which, no one even offered to lift a finger – she’s now been put to work cooking up a massive batch of bacon and eggs (or the biblical equivalent) and serving them to a bunch of ungrateful family members.
And Jake. Who is, she supposes, a family member now, too.
Great.
After breakfast, Rachel goes out with the shepherds to tend their flock, and Jake stays back to talk marriage with Laban.
Leah, naturally, is washing the dishes and cleaning down the table. Jake finds himself staring at her while she works – the way her hair moves, the way her hips sway, the way her...
“So I take it you can’t offer much in the way of a dowry?”
Jake snaps out of his trance and turns to Laban, who is awaiting a response.
He swallows, half-ashamed for having no money, half-fearful that he’s just been caught staring at his future sister-in-law. “Uh, no, not really.”
“That’s no problem. I didn’t have much in the way of funds myself at your age. I’m sure we can work something out.”
Laban smiles, revealing his crooked, yellow teeth. If Jake had seen any Disney movies – off the top of my head, I’m thinking Stromboli from Pinnochio and Jafar disguised as the prisoner in Aladdin – he would’ve known to high-tail it out of there.
Unfortunately, Disney didn’t exist yet.
The deal they end up coming to is that Jake will work for seven years for Rachel’s hand in marriage.
You heard right.
Seven...fucking...years.
Why is it always seven?
Good question.
I would say it must have been one memorable night with Rachel, but he was too freaking drunk to remember it.
What could it be, then?
Loyalty to his mother? A desire to have children, raise a family?
Not so much.
He’s still angry at his mom for kicking him out of the house and stepping on his dream of being a writer. And he doesn’t really give a shit about being a dad.
What he does want is Leah.
And little by little, day by day, week by week, he endears himself to her.
While Rachel spends her days tending flocks with the shepherds, and her nights drinking and bare-knuckle boxing, Jake spends his with Leah around the house – cooking, cleaning, making and repairing clothes. He learns how to work the loom, how to sow, how to clean and dress a slaughtered goat.
Yes, indeed – it’s a f
ertile bed for romance to grow.
Slowly, they realise they have a lot in common. He’d been a shy, introverted kid, much as she had been.
He likes to read and write – just like her.
He dreams of publishing his novel one day, and wouldn’t you know it, so does she.
They begin reading each other’s work and giving each other feedback. He’s writing the kind of pretentious, literary, partially-autobiographical piece that’s typical of the first-time author.
She, on the other hand, has gone straight into an awesome genre-mashup series that features dragons, spaceships and time-travel. She’s already written three books in the series, while he spends his days moving commas around on his first.
Gradually, their feedback sessions turn into something a little more, but no one bats an eye.
They all think Jake is a pussy for indulging his interest in literature – especially Rachel, who opts to go out drinking with the boys while he and Leah have their ‘sessions’.
She doesn’t think for a second that her betrothed will see anything in her plain-Jane nerd of a sister, or that Jake (who’s shaping up to be the most henpecked of stay-at-home dads) will ever dare to betray her.
Slowly, the illicit romance blossoms into love.
Slowly, Rachel’s hair grows back.
Come time for the wedding, Jake’s planning on making a run for it – leaving Rach at the altar and high-tailing it out of there with Leah, planning to elope somewhere and live off the land.
They’ll be alright. Surely, they will.
Leah can hunt and cook and clean. She can provide for them. She can protect them.
They’re having the wedding just outside the house, with the aisle running from the doorway to the arbour (that arch thingy with the flowers and shit). Jake is standing under it with the priest, the bridesmaids and his groomsmen – weddings haven’t changed in four thousand years, right?
Jake’s looking around, bug-eyed, mapping out every possible route of escape, judging which one is least likely to get him castrated.
But where the fuck is Leah?
She was supposed to be waiting at the back to give him the signal when Laban was distracted getting ready to walk down the aisle with Rachel, but he can’t see her anywhere.
Jesus Christ, did Rach seriously not invite her own sister to the wedding?
What a bitch.
Just as Jake is summoning his courage, doing calf stretches and eyeing the exits, the band kicks into action, playing its best approximation of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” – but instead of a pipe organ, they’re using harps and tambourines and shit.
Laban appears at the end of the aisle with the bride, veil hiding her face, and they begin taking slow, measured steps toward him.
“Fuck!” Jake thinks, panicking. “I’m too late...”
Laban and Rachel stop a few paces short of Jake. The father hugs his daughter and goes to stand off to the left with the two shepherds. Together, the three of them comprise the entirety of the bride’s side of the aisle.
There is no one standing on Jake’s side.
Poor Jake.
Rachel comes up to stand beside her groom, who’s scanning the crowd for Leah, but still – no sign.
In the ancient Middle Eastern wedding tradition, the priest begins with, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...”
After the vows and the rings and the “I do’s” – again, weddings were the same back then, right? – it comes time to unveil the bride for a big old smooch.
Jake tenses up.
He prepares himself for life without Leah.
He prepares himself for waking up next to a woman he doesn’t love.
He prepares himself for Rachel hosting all-night card games with the shepherds where he wanders out, half-asleep, and asks if they could please keep it down.
He prepares himself for a night of rough sex with his well-muscled bride, in which he will no doubt be the bottom.
But, as the veil comes back, it’s not Rachel underneath...
It’s Leah!
Jake doesn’t know what to say.
Laban jumps forward, pointing at him and going, “Ha! That’s what you get, you fucker! That’s what you get for paying me with counterfeit silver.”
Jake frowns, like, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He says, “I didn’t pay you with counterfeit silver.”
“I know you didn’t. But your ol’ granddaddy did, when he sent his goon to come kidnap my sister for your dad.”
Jake’s head spins as he tries to connect the faces to the pronouns. “Wait – he paid my mom’s dowry with fake silver?”
“That’s right. And I’m sorry that it has to be you, but someone’s gotta pay for what he did.”
Jake goes to say, “Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” then catches himself.
What the fuck is he arguing with?
So what if Laban thinks he’s sticking it to the now-deceased Abe for something that happened decades ago?
Jake still gets what he wants.
He looks back at Leah, who’s smiling at him. Jake can’t help it – he smiles back. Only for a second, but Laban catches it. His gleeful expression crumbles.
Jake tries to look dejected, like his new father-in-law has really pulled one over on him. “Goddamn it.”
Laban steps toward them. “Hold on a minute...”
He glances between the bride and groom, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He points from one to the other. “What’s going on here?”
Both of them feign ignorance.
“Nothing,” says Leah. “What do you mean?”
“You smiled. I saw it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.” He turns to the priest. “You saw it?”
The priest steps back, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m not getting anywhere near this, man.”
Slowly, it dawns on the not-so-proud father of the bride. His eyes flare with anger and he looms over Jake. “You son of a bitch...”
“You mean your sister?”
“I mean you! You tricked me.”
“Oh, please, dad,” Leah says. “You’re just angry because all this time you were planning on screwing him over, when we’ve been screwing each other for years.”
“You what?”
Everyone turns to see Rachel at the end of the aisle, having emerged from her hiding place inside. She storms up the aisle, furious.
“How dare you sleep with my husband!”
“He’s not your husband, babe. Check it.” She flips Rachel the middle finger – on which, by no accident, is the wedding ring.
This is that glasses-off, nerd-turns-into-a-model moment I was telling you about.
Rachel screams and charges at Leah, about to tear her hair out. Jake and Laban jump in between them, husband holding wife, father holding daughter. Eventually, everyone calms down.
“Alright, look,” Laban says. “What are we gonna do about this? You guys are married now, it’s official. As far as I know, there’s no way to annul the union, or to somehow...” He searches for the right word. “...divorce you guys from one another. If only there was some concept that allowed a married couple to be separated, and if they had children, maybe the man would have to make regular payments to the woman to support that child in some way. Maybe some mediation would be involved, whereby an unbiased third party would...”
“Well, too bad,” says Leah, cutting him off. “We’re married. Your plan didn’t work. It’s over. That’s what you get for using your daughter as a pawn in your revenge scheme. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re going to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after.”
Laban glares at her. He glares at Jake.
They give him smiles of matching smugness, watching as the gears turn in his head, a plan taking shape.
Finally, Laban looks over at the still-fuming Rachel, and a very different kind of smile creeps onto his face. A menacing one.
“Very well,” he says. “I have a proposal.”
“Which is...?”
“You work for me another seven years, and in return, you can marry Rachel as well.”
“I don’t want to marry Rachel,” Jake says. A quick, apologetic glance at Rachel. “Sorry, Rach, it’s just...y’know...the chemistry’s not there.”
Rachel shrugs. “Y’know, I actually don’t think I care. Like, at all. You’re too skinny for me anyway. I need a real man, and you’re just a boy.”
“He’s my boy,” Leah says, holding Jake’s head to her chest in a creepily-maternal way.
“He’s both of your boy!” Laban shouts. He quickly realises what he said was incorrect, and tries to remedy it. “Both of yours boy? Both of your boys?” He shakes his head, giving up. “The fact remains – I’m not going to have an unmarried daughter if I can help it, and Rachel was always going to be the harder of the two to get rid of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rachel says.
“Well, you’re not exactly feminine, are you?”
“And how do you define femininity?”
Laban gives an exasperated sigh, not wanting to get into it.
Jake’s like, “So, wait – you mean to tell me that you already had Rachel signed, sealed and delivered, but threw it all away just to try and fuck me over.”
Laban goes quiet, feeling foolish. “I thought it would be all poetic and stuff. Like how you deceived your dad by pretending to be your older brother. I thought that, like, by inverting that situation and replacing the younger Rachel with the older Leah, you’d be all like, ‘Whoa, mind blown,” and be really pissed and stuff.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out that way.”
“Admit it – it would’ve been awesome if it had worked. Just imagine you pulling back Leah’s veil if you actually had wanted to marry Rachel.”
“Yeah, it would’ve been pretty rad. Instead, I was just incredibly happy and relieved.”
Laban’s face falls even further at the thought of how terribly his plan has backfired.
“So...thanks, man. I owe you one. Figuratively-speaking, of course. I don’t actually owe you anything. My seven years is done.”
“Now,” Leah says. “If the two of you don’t mind, we’re going to screw each other’s brains out.”
She loops her arm through Jake’s and goes to lead him away.
