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From the words he’d just said, soon was here and I was both relieved and nervous.
We were sitting in our usual positions on the couch. I was up against the armrest and Daisy was pressed up against my side. I had my arm around her shoulders. When we were watching TV, she liked to rest her head on my chest. Sage was in his favorite spot… lying on his side facing the television, his head resting on Daisy’s thigh. He loved when she played with his hair, so she did it often. Even now, her fingers were threading through his thick locks and while she’d stilled them when he’d spoken, she quickly resumed the gentle caress.
“I called her Mouse because she was so small and quiet. Her parents had only recently joined the church. She was younger than most of the girls when they decided she was ready to face the alter, but she knew what was going to happen. One of the other girls had told her. So when they put us in the room together for The Bonding, she began to cry and begged me not to hurt her.”
Sage’s voice was frighteningly calm. I wished I could see his eyes as he spoke, but I didn’t dare move.
“The boys always got initiated by one of the older female members of the church, so I knew what they were expecting from me and Mouse. I knew if she didn’t agree, she’d be punished and I knew how they’d punish her. They preferred that the girls be virgins when they faced the alter for the first time, but it wasn’t a hard and fast rule.”
Daisy’s free hand searched out mine and squeezed it hard, even as she continued to gently stroke Sage’s hair. I dropped my head and pressed it against Daisy’s because I needed every bit of contact with her that I could get, especially since I didn’t have my hands on Sage. She was my link to him.
“So when they came for us, I refused. I told them I wasn’t interested in Mouse and I wasn’t going to fuck her. They hated that word,” Sage said with a harsh laugh. “They called it ‘The Offering.’”
I swallowed hard at that.
“They punished me for days.”
“How?” I croaked, because I needed to know. I didn’t want to know, but I needed to.
“Beatings at first. No food, no water, that sort of thing. But I held out. They’d put me back in with Mouse at night because they were sure The Bonding would cleanse me of whatever evil was keeping me from doing my duty. Then they tried using one sin to cure another.” Sage let out a harsh laugh. “For all the fuss the men made about fags being disciples of the devil, they sure didn’t have a problem going to town on my ass.”
I closed my eyes and pressed my mouth against Daisy’s hair to stifle the bellow of rage that was bubbling up inside of me. Daisy didn’t manage to quell the sob that tore free from her throat. I didn’t need to see her face to know she was crying.
“Took the fuckers days to figure it out,” Sage muttered.
“What?” I managed to ask.
“What would work. Mouse, she’d take care of me as best she could every night when they put me back in with her. When they came for me on the fourth morning, she screamed at them not to take me and she tried to cover me with her body. When one of the men grabbed her to pull her off, he wrenched her arm. I made the mistake of going after him.”
Daisy released my hand long enough to wipe at her eyes. “They used her to get to you,” she whispered hoarsely.
Sage nodded on her thigh. “They made me watch. One of the men raped her right there on the floor. Her own father was one of the men to hold me back as I screamed at him to stop. I told him I’d do it, but it was too late. When it was over, they told me that if I refused the next time it was our turn for The Offering, she’d be punished. We never refused again.”
Tears began slipping down my cheeks, but I didn’t care. My suffering was a drop in the hat compared to Sage’s.
“I promised I’d get her out of there. Every day for a year, I made her that promise and every day she believed me. But one day… one day she stopped believing and she started asking… begging me to set her free. I didn’t understand what she meant at first. She wanted me to keep my promise. She cried in my arms for hours. Then the footsteps came. It was our turn to give The Offering. And I knew I couldn’t keep my promise – I couldn’t save her. I covered her mouth with my hand when she began screaming because I knew they’d punish her if they heard her. There was nothing I could do,” Sage whispered, his voice finally breaking.
