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“I'll think about it,” I announce finally.
“No, I really think —”
I hold up one hand, stop. He clamps his lip shut immediately.
“I will think about it,” I growl, unhappy that I have to repeat myself.
He stands, scowling and slapping his palms against his thighs, just fidgeting. His boots are heavy across the floorboards as he leaves the small room, letting the screen door slam behind him.
I need to take another look at this girl. If she's so valuable to some other people, I want to think twice before I give her away.
Angel
The last thing Mama said to me before she left for her duties at the reclamation shed was that I was forbidden to leave. Again. Her eyes drifted over my legs as I lay in bed. I wasn’t sure if she was considering criticizing my choice of nightgowns, or checking to see if my bruises had healed yet from the whipping she gave me. Either way, I was still grounded.
She's gone now, and I know I can probably lay in bed for quite a while longer. Maybe even all day. Over the last few days, I've cleaned every nook and cranny in our little house at least three times. I don't have anything else to do. Even the garden is all tidied and weed free now. I doubt any giant burdock plants have sprung up overnight, so all I really need to do is go out there to retrieve sweet pea tendrils and check for rabbit damage.
I can't sleep anymore. I'm not tired. Laying here is making me edgy and sore. But without anything else to do over the course of the day, why should I even bother? Why should I get up?
My thoughts drift to a sermon Father Daddy gave once about the sinfulness of sloth. It's no accident that sloth is one of the deadly sins. You might think it's not so bad, he said, but stealing the labor you should be donating to your Family, by withholding it, is unforgivable. That is why we cannot indulge in sloth.
But is it sloth if I have been commanded to stay here? And I’ve run out of chores?
The thing is, the sermon was so compelling. I understood the danger of that sin immediately after he explained it to us. I know I need to get up. I can almost sense Father Daddy's disapproving stare if he knew what I was doing right now. Just laying here, pretending to want to sleep.
He would be so disappointed, he would probably get that look in his eyes, that angry squint. The one where he is trying to calculate something, as though he can weigh the amount of sin like a sack of flour or something. Hold it in his hands. Bounce it against his palm, with his arms and chest flexing under the weight of it.
And then it overtakes me again. Images of Father Daddy and Brother Owen with the newly-named Obedience. I know I wasn't supposed to be there, and the remaining, stinging ache on my backside and legs reminds me just how much. Mama’s cruel, enraged expression is something I won’t be able to forget soon either. I know I risked embarrassing her in front of the other aunties. That would not have been forgivable.
Yet, I can't bring myself to regret it. It was an absolutely miraculous vision I witnessed. I can’t forget the glory of Father Daddy and Brother Owen in their unabashed nakedness, their literal holy forms exposed to me, as they made a woman of Obedience.
I curl onto my side, trembling in the thrall of the vision of them that I can't seem to get out of my mind. I know I shouldn't keep replaying at, but I can't help it. I just can't.
What they did to her… that was sacred. That was a secret ritual and knowing that it awaits me too sends electric thrills through the deepest parts of my body. My core trembles. My heart flip-flops from side to side, banging against the inside of my rib cage.
Will they do it just like that? Will Brother Owen open my mouth, place his manhood against my lower lip? What does it taste like? What am I supposed to do with it?
Will Father Daddy lean over me, nudging his manhood against my flower? How could he? He was so big, it doesn't seem possible. I don’t believe I could manage it.
What if I can't? What if I get to the ceremony and it's just impossible? What if there is something wrong with me and my body can't accommodate him?
The thought shocks me. I'm instantly disappointed in myself, filled with shame that I might let them down in such a way.
But it can’t be true. Can it? The results would be devastating. I could be cast out. I could be found defective and sent to live among the heathens.
No. I can do better. And besides, maybe I'm fine. Maybe I'm built exactly like Obedience, and she seemed to manage the ceremony all right, didn't she?
But just to be sure.
I should check?
I should.
Even though Mama told me never to do this, in the strictest and direst of warnings, I let my fingers drift over my belly and into my thick, cotton panties.
I was always told that my hands should only brush over the top of my flower to clean it. Quickly, with a swiping motion. I was definitely not to linger here, I remember as my hands creep even lower. I resolve not to explore it too earnestly. My flower is a gift I am meant to give my Master. It's not to be opened too soon, nor treated roughly.
But I need to be certain. Cautiously, I let my fingers drift to the warmer parts of me. I roll back onto my back and bend my knees up, planting my heels farther apart.
