The Deadfall

by Lilly Black

  "This companion book is horrifying," Dani insisted. "There's even a caveat that says premarital and extramarital sex is sanctioned by God if the church elders say so."

  "That's like carte blanche to sexually abuse members!" Olivia shouted, furious.

  "Yeah, and listen to what it says about orgasms," she said, flipping to a page she had dog-eared. "'When a women marries, she must never have been with a man outside of the sanction of the church, and if she is pure and true in her faith, she will achieve ecstasy through her union with her husband. If the union does not bring ecstasy, she must reaffirm her faith through confession and acts of service to her husband and church. The same is true of her husband. His wife will bring him ecstasy if he is pure and true in his faith, yet if he is not, he will receive no pleasure.' How much you wanna bet no man was ever accused of not being true in his faith?"

  "No shit!" Liana added. "A man who's a virgin on his wedding night? That would take like, what? Thirty seconds? What chance does the wife even have?"

  "I could get off in thirty seconds," Olivia grumbled.

  "And we're all jealous as fuck. Get over yourself, Olivia," Dani said with an eye roll.

  "I don't think she was bragging," Liana disputed. "I think she's so sexually frustrated at this point, her brain isn't working. Would you please just fuck Alek already?"

  "I can't," she sighed.

  "Want me to get Pastor Weiland to sanction it?" Liana joked.

  "Seriously, Liv. You can, and as your psychologist, I'm prescribing it," Dani said.

  "How can I do that when Reid could be out there somewhere fighting for his life to get back to me? What kind of person would that make me?"

  "Oh, come on, Olivia! The odds that Reid is alive are..." Liana stopped abruptly, covering her mouth as Olivia's eyes began to fill with tears. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have..."

  "No, you're right," Olivia said. "He's probably been dead since the first day he didn't call me, but that doesn't mean I'm free to do whatever I please. My husband dies on a Tuesday, and I'm already fucking another man by Wednesday afternoon?"

  "Darlin', this is not normal life," Dani said, sitting down beside her on the couch and putting her arm around her shoulders. "Let me ask you. If Reid is still alive out there but can't get back to you, what would you want him to do in a world where he could die at any minute?"

  "I'd want him to find comfort wherever he could," she said. "I get it. Okay?"

  "But you think he wouldn't want the same for you?" she asked. "Just because you're inside these walls doesn't mean you're not in danger every moment of every day. Someone could die of a heart attack in their sleep, and twenty minutes later, the whole damn compound is full of zombies. You deserve to take comfort where you can find it."

  "And what about Alek?" Liana asked. "Doesn't he deserve...comfort? Is that what we're calling sex?"

  "He does," Olivia muttered, covering her face with her hands. She appreciated what they were trying to do because she needed absolution, but she could find none because her desire for Alek didn't begin after Reid stopped calling. He had been sleeping in her bed since the first night, and she hated herself for it. She hated herself for wanting him, and she hated herself for knowing that sooner or later she was going to have him. If only she could be certain that Reid would want her to move on at the accelerated rate their current circumstances necessitated, maybe then she could forgive herself.

  "Look," she said finally as she wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. "I know what I'm doing right now isn't fair to Reid or Alek. I don't know how to deal with this, but I'm trying, so can we please move on?"

  "Okay," Dani said reluctantly, "but maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if you started sessions with me once a week."

  "I'll think about it."

  "In other words, no," Liana said with a laugh.

  "You either agree to therapy with me or with Alek," Dani said. "Your choice."

  "I believe we came here to talk about June," Olivia insisted, refusing to consent to either. She didn't need anyone inside her head. She'd spent enough time there herself, and it wasn't a fun place to be lately.

  "You're the most stubborn motherfucker I've ever known," Dani balked, then she grabbed her cell and punched in June's code.

  "Hello?" June answered.

  "Hey shug, it's Dani. Can you come over for a few minutes?"

  "Be right there," she said, and when Dani disconnected, she gave Olivia a satisfied glare.

  "She'll be right here...and that's what you do when your shrink says you need therapy."

  "Fuck you, Freud," Olivia said, making them both laugh.

  June did come running when Dani called, but as soon as she stepped through the door and saw the others there, her face fell. Though she didn't know exactly what they had in mind, this gathering had intervention written all over it.

  "What's going on?" she asked hesitantly.

  "Everything's okay. Have a seat," Dani said in her soothing, therapist voice, which only made June more defensive. Then Dani laid a Bible down on the table, and her curiosity was piqued. She had become convinced her friends were all godless heathens, and she was fairly certain Olivia was a Satanist based on the teachings of Labor of Faith Ministries. In truth, she had no idea what that meant, picturing the cannibalistic orgies she was warned about by her cult leaders because her friends were absolutely right in their assessment. The Labor of Faith Ministries was a cult. They used fear along with brainwashing and mind control techniques to make Pastor Weiland and the other leaders rich and powerful while keeping the flock subservient, and before the internet went dark, there were hundreds of articles about all five branches between North Carolina and Ohio, including the local assembly that was less than thirty miles from the compound, being under investigation for everything from tax fraud to sexual abuse.

  But none of June's friends knew these things. Olivia didn't even know she lived so close to a Labor of Faith branch. She didn't need to know anything beyond what she had learned from spot reading Weiland's Companion. That had shown them all what the ministry really was, and now it was time for June to see the light.

  They approached her cautiously with nothing but gentleness and understanding, Olivia letting the others lead the way lest her own impatience and cynicism taint what could be the awakening June so desperately needed, and her self control paid off as she quietly watched June's face when Dani started reading the comments about sex and marriage from the companion book and showing her where there was nothing corresponding in the Bible. Her expression betrayed the intelligent mind working behind the scenes, but her mouth toed the line.

  "Pastor Weiland said that the English versions weren't accurate, so his notes in the companion come directly from the original texts," she protested.

  "The original texts are under guard in the Vatican," Liana said, "and even if they let some small-time, protestant preacher come in to see them, could Pastor Weiland read and translate Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic?"

  "June," Dani began with an impatient sigh as she saw her resisting Liana's facts. "Let's focus on what I read to you instead. Were you blessed with ecstasy from your union with Jimbo?"

  June looked down at her feet for a moment before answering in a small, grudging voice. "No."

  "And what happened when you went to confess?"

  "I didn't confess," she said. "I knew it was my fault."

  "How could it be your fault?" Liana asked.

  "Because I wasn't pure!" she shouted, then she burst into tears. Olivia rolled her eyes as Dani scooted in close, pushing her to continue.

  "What do you mean, shug?" she asked.

  "I fooled around with my boyfriend before Jimbo," she admitted.

  "Well, holy fuck me!" Olivia exclaimed almost joyfully. "Sister Christian wasn't a virgin on her wedding night!"

  "You take that back!" June snapped. "It's not true. I didn't have sex with him."

  "What was it then? Oral?" Olivia asked, her perverse pleasure in June's discomfort earn
ing her harsh glares from the others.

  "No! Never! We always had our clothes on!" she defended herself as if she were on trial for her life...or her immortal soul.

  "Then what did you do that was so bad?" Dani asked.

  "We would kiss and rub up against each other," she said meekly, then to everyone's surprise, she elaborated. "It felt so good, and I remember every last detail of what it was like to be excited...down there...to want something so much but not even know what it was that I wanted. I should've married him so I could have found out. I should've just..."

  "Wait," Liana stopped her. "What are you saying? Because it sounds like you're saying you haven't felt that way since."

  Ashamed, June looked up at Liana's face, opening her mouth several times as if she might speak, but no words came out.

  "Are you saying you've never had an orgasm?" Olivia asked, the amusement on her face replaced by pity.

  June sucked her lips into her mouth as they began to tremble, and her eyes welled with tears. Her chest heaved as she tried to hold the emotion inside, and she couldn't make eye contact with any of them.

  "Oh, June," Olivia said, bumping Dani right out of her way as she sat down beside her on the couch, putting her arms around her old friend, who collapsed against her. Olivia felt horrible. She knew sex with Jimbo was probably lame and missionary only, but she never dreamed June wasn't being taken care of in some capacity. Suddenly, she wished she could take back all of the shitty things she had said. Sure, June perpetually tried to make the others feel like sluts for their sexuality, but now she knew that it went beyond self-righteousness. It was driven by envy.

  "Do you know what it was that felt so good when you were rubbing against your old boyfriend?" she asked, and June shook her head shyly. She had no idea because she hadn't felt the sensation in over fifteen years. "It was your clitoris. Not every woman can have an orgasm from penetration alone."

  "Really?" she asked, curious yet ashamed of her curiosity.

  "I can't. The first time Aiden and I had sex, I faked it," Liana confessed, the words slipping out of her mouth before she even thought about their potential ramifications. She never intended to admit that to Aiden. She didn't even admit it to her own journal. "Shit! You all can't tell anyone that - not ever!"

  "I won't say a word, but what the fuck, Lilo?" Olivia asked, saddened because living vicariously through her friends was all she had at this point.

  "It wasn't his fault. I can't come from penetration. He didn't know that."

  "He's going to figure it out sooner or later, or do you plan to just keep faking it?" Dani asked.

  "Or you could figure out how to do it, then it will be a nonissue," Olivia said. "You know it isn't the same kind of orgasm, right?"

  "Wait! What?" Dani asked, confused. For her it was exactly the same.

  "The orgasm from penetration is a different kind of orgasm than the one you get from oral," Olivia said.

  "No, it isn't," Dani argued.

  "Yes," Olivia said. "It is. It's completely different, and you can do it over and over without any down time."

  "Huh?" Dani wondered.

  "And also how?" Liana added, thrusting Olivia into an unfamiliar position. Liana and Dani had always been the experienced ones while she was utterly clueless, and now the tables were turned thanks to Reid.

  "I'm not sure how. It just happens," she admitted. "I feel it somewhere inside, and...I don't even know how to describe it. It just feels overpowering and incredible, and it's not final like the other one. Reid can make me come like again and again and..." She trailed off with a giggle as she realized she'd become lost in her thoughts of her husband while the others looked at her incredulously.

  "So you're saying it's completely disconnected from your clit?" Dani asked.

  "Yeah...well, no, but yeah. It's disconnected in the sense that I can just fuck without anything else and get off, but when Reid fucks me right after he goes down on me, I come even faster, and it's more intense," she said, still speaking of Reid in the present tense. No one mentioned it.

  "Okay," Dani said. "I have to admit when I skimmed your journal, I thought you were completely full of shit saying you could come twenty times in a row, but I didn't realize you were talking about something different because it doesn't work that way for me. I'm one and done...or at least that was the case before I met Jax." Just the thought brought an impish grin to her lips.

  "Well, I'm glad you know what she's talking about because I'm still lost," Liana said.

  "You're lost? I don't have the slightest clue what any of you are talking about," June suddenly interjected, and they realized they had completely forgotten why they were there in the first place.

  "We're talking about the meaning of life, June," Olivia said.

  "Orgasms," she whispered under her breath, shy about even saying the word, "are not the meaning of life."

  "I challenge you to say that again once you've had one," Dani said, and the others laughed.

  "I don't even know how," June protested, "especially after all of this."

  "Maybe you need a Bob of your own. I have several brand new ones to choose from," Olivia said, speaking of the secret sex toy shop she had to go with the BDSM cabins. There were plenty of vibrators in there.

  "Are you suggesting I...masturbate?" she asked, whispering the last word.

  "Consider it a prescription from your therapist," Dani said.

  "Masturbation is a sin."

  "Masturbation is not a sin, June," Olivia said. "Orgasms are a basic human right."

  "A basic human need," Dani added.

  "What's the point?" June asked. "Apparently, I can't have orgasms from penetration anyway." The "dirty" words, again, were barely audible as she spoke.

  "A vibrator may look phallic, but you don't have to stick it inside yourself," Liana said with a roll of her eyes, thinking June was just being stubborn at this point.

  "Using the...c....the cl...."

  "Clit," Olivia said impatiently.

  "That's a bigger sin," June whispered, and Olivia growled in disapproval.

  "June, honey, how can that be a sin?" Liana asked.

  "Because it isn't part of natural, normal sex."

  "Oh, my God! I can't even!" Olivia jumped to her feet, throwing her hands up in the air. She wanted to help, but she just had no tolerance for this level of ignorance.

  "June," Dani began, sitting close on the couch and looking into her eyes. "You've been given a bunch of misinformation by men who wanted to control you. You have every right to enjoy sex as much as a man, and I'm sorry, shug, but you just can't do that without your clit."

  "It's true, Junie-bug," Liana said, nodding her head. "Except for Liv, who apparently hit the female orgasm lottery, a huge percentage of women can't come at all without involving their clits. Like me for instance."

  "Me too," Dani said. "So, how can it be a sin? How is that fair?"

  Before June could come up with an answer, Olivia grabbed a kitchen chair, flipped it around backwards, and sat down facing her with a look that said: I got this.

  "When babies start out in the womb, you can't tell what sex they are. They all look the same. Then as the sex organs start to form, the nerves that become the penis in a male become the clitoris in the female. So how could it possibly be wrong for a woman to use those nerves when it isn't wrong for a man?"

  June didn't know what to say. She'd never heard it put that way before, but now that she had, she was having trouble reconciling what she had been taught about her body with what she was coming to see as reality.

  "So, you're saying that even if I can't have an orgasm from regular sex like Olivia, I could still have one from regular sex however Dani does?" she asked finally.

  "Not necessarily," Olivia said. "I don't know if I'm atypical, but I couldn't possibly have a clitoral orgasm from just fucking."

  "And I need direct clitoral stimulation to come while fucking," Liana added.

  "Then what are you saying?"
>
  "We're saying there's no single answer. You need to figure out what works for you," Dani explained.

  "How?"

  "Touch yourself," Dani said. "It's your clit, your labia, your vagina. Go home, spread it out in the mirror, and get to know it."

  "I can't do that," June insisted, looking down as a blush came over her.

  "Of course you can," Olivia argued.

  "Will you promise me that you'll at least think about it?" Dani urged her. "Maybe later tonight when you're in bed, just let your mind wander over everything we've talked about today, then we can discuss it more in your next session, okay?"

  "Okay. I'll think about it," June acquiesced grudgingly, but she still meant it. Even before this conversation, she was starting to see that their ideas of a normal, healthy life did have merit because her sons were thriving here like they never had under the rule of the Labor of Faith Ministries, and she really wanted to take their sex advice as well.

  "Good enough," Dani said.

  "So is the intervention over?" June asked, and when the other women nodded, she got up, thanking them sarcastically as she hurried toward the door.

  That night at dinner, Olivia, Liana, and Dani were on kitchen duty with June, and they couldn't help but notice that there appeared to be a change in her. She seemed happier, lighter. Liana was as well because after their conversation earlier, Olivia had decided to bring her an unmarked brown paper bag with a lovely new Bob. Liana had followed Olivia after she left Dani's cabin wanting to know more about this elusive, interior orgasm of which she spoke, and during their conversation, Liana admitted that she wouldn't allow Aiden to perform oral sex on her. It was driving Olivia crazy that she refused to say why, but Liana was not ready to tell anyone about her blemishes.

  Though aggravated with her friend's stubbornness because she couldn't imagine why anyone would ever turn down oral sex, it was still important to Olivia to help Liana, so she went straight to the locked, walk-in closet that served as her private stockroom to find a solution. And there it was staring her in the face.