Abel's Obsession

by Lynn Burke

  ****

  “Your turn, Abel.” My eleven-year-old sister, Sarah, handed me the dice.

  I rolled, not caring one way or the other about winning our weekly Monopoly game.

  Mamm and Daed sat in their hickory rockers on either side of the propane lamp lighting and heating the already warm living room. All four windows stood open, letting in the cool spring air.

  I leaned forward on the blue couch cushion and tossed the dice onto the board atop the coffee table. “Three.”

  “Ha!” Naomi clapped her hands as I landed on a property she had bought a hotel for on her last turn.

  “How much do I owe you?” I asked, my voice deadpan, shoulders slumped.

  While she checked the back of the property card, my attention wandered. Normally, I enjoyed our Friday game night complete with huge bowls of buttered popcorn. My chest felt tight as my mind raced from one thought to the next, my gut sense and obedient spirit fighting against the filth I had seen and my desire for more of it.

  I handed over the play money to Naomi and ran a hand through my hair, casting a glance over at Daed. Confession would be gut for the soul, I knew, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to speak of what I had seen. Every inch of me crawled as though covered in dirt and sweat from wallowing like a pig in its sty.

  My father and I worked together in the wood shop every day, creating Shaker furniture for a local store to sell. There wasn’t anything in my life Daed didn’t know about. Until Red, there hadn’t been a desire, concern, or hope I hadn’t shared with him. A man of wisdom and understanding, he always seemed to know just what to say and when.

  As if hearing my thoughts, he lifted his head from the Bible in his hands. His hazel-eyed gaze lingered on my face. “Are you well, son?”

  I bit on the inside of my lip for a few seconds, but nodded. “Ya, Daed.”

  He smiled and returned to his book.

  Jacob and Jedidiah, the brothers I had always wanted but didn’t get until I was thirteen, played with blocks at Mamm’s feet as she too read a book resting on her lap. My gaze flitted over her midsection, and I noticed what Naomi had claimed the Sunday before.

  What kind of relationship did my parents share? I wondered, studying their down-turned heads. The thought of their procreating made me wince, but I couldn’t help wondering if they enjoyed each other, or if intimacy was simply a chore married couples must endure to populate the earth as Gott had commanded.

  I had seen Daed gently lay his hand on Mamm’s lower back a few times and call her his liebchen, and I had caught them gazing at each other unlike anyone else I had ever seen. Never had a cross word left their mouths that I had heard. Perhaps they were truly in love and did enjoy the marriage bed.

  “Abel!” Sarah said again, elbowing me.

  I pulled my mind back to the present and took the dice from her hand.

  “Pay attention,” Ruthie, my youngest sister said, using the words I normally had to toss her way. Only seven, she didn’t completely grasp the concept of the game, but insisted on playing.

  “Gathering wool, Little Nugget.” I grinned down at her and tugged her long braid. “Sorry.”

  Her lips mirrored Sarah’s scowl, her blue eyes half-hidden by her narrowed gaze.

  A shriek sounded from the twins, drawing all of our attention. Jacob clobbered Jedidiah over the head, and the younger twin howled, hitting him back.

  “Boys.” Daed’s stern yet quiet voice made both boys pause mid-strike. They sat still as stone as Daed lay down the Bible and stood. He took them both in hand and marched them up the stairs, and my backside flinched in memory of the strap sure to lick their backsides. It had only taken a handful of such spankings to set me on the path of righteousness as a child. Mamm always said I had been a quick learner, one of her seven gifts from Gott.

  I tossed the dice and glanced around at the family I adored more than life itself. Sitting up straighter, I decided it was time to honor both of my parents for their commitment to raise me right in the sight of Gott—I was done with my mental sin. I had made my confession to Gott, and whether I experienced relief from the shame or not, the Bible promised forgiveness.

  Chapter Two

  “Can I ask you something personal?”

  Daed lowered the board he had been holding to check for straightness. “Of course.”

  I glanced around the shop I had worked in since I finished up schooling in eighth grade. A line shaft system powered by a diesel engine made for easier furniture creation than the older way of using hand tools. The scent of fresh lumber and sawdust surrounded me, making me as comfortable as I could be for the conversation I had been wanting yet dreading.

  “When you first saw Mamm,” I began, still unsure of what words to use.

  “Yes?” He smiled, his hazel eyes kind and twinkling in the sunlight pouring through the south-facing windows.

  I leaned against the wall closest to him, a small planer gripped in my hand. “How did you feel when you first saw her? Did you know right away that you wanted to marry her?”

  He set the board aside and ran a hand through his hair as I often did. “I first saw her at a singalong in the neighboring community. It was her big blue eyes and black lashes that drew me like a moth to a lamp.” He chuckled and glanced out the window toward the house where Mamm and Sarah hung wash. “I couldn’t breathe and felt sure my chest would explode.”

  The memory of Red caused a similar sensation in my own chest, and I started to smile.

  Daed peered at me as his brow furrowed. “Have you met someone, then, son?”

  My smile faded, and I glanced away. “I did see a young woman once who affected me in such a way, but she … well, she isn’t Amish.”

  Silence settled over us for a few minutes, and I finally turned toward him. I had expected to find judgment—at the very least, anger—but understanding and compassion shone through his smile. “You’re free to do as you will right now, Abel. While I would prefer a plain Amish girl for you, the choice is yours. Just keep Gott’s will foremost in your mind and continue to obey His commandments.”

  I should have told him the rest. I should have told him about the magazine I had seen, the sinful desires that warred inside of me, how nothing I did or said seemed to lessen the temptation of the power available to a man in the world beyond our community. I hungered for carnal knowledge of a woman—and her submission—and didn’t know how to make the desire go away.

  A simple nod and I turned, fighting to focus on the footboard my father’s English collaborators at the furniture store had requested for the following week’s delivery.

  ****

  “I went out with Toby’s friend, Melissa, again last Friday and Saturday.” Eli pulled back his arm and cast his fishing line into the large pond behind our house.

  “Did you?” I asked, not really wanting to know any details while hooking another worm onto my fishing rod. I already knew more about Melissa than I cared to, right down to the color of the bush, as Eli called it, between her thighs.

  Eli chuckled. “Funny how much we don’t know. What we aren’t taught about women and sex.”

  I made a non-committal noise in my throat and cast my own line out into the pond.

  “We fucked so many times, I lost count of the times and positions.”

  Eli’s language had changed since he began running around with the English. I no longer cringed at his curse words and slang for sexual terms, but I hadn’t yet begun repeating them—I had no plans to, either. What I should have done, was told him to keep quiet about his running around in the world, and keep the details of his promiscuity to himself, but a tiny part inside of my brain fed off the images he created in my mind.

  “Did you know you can fuck while standing?”

  “No.” I tried to imagine how, but came up blank.

  “Melissa told me she wanted me to fuck her up against the wall.” Eli reeled in his line, shaking his head. “I wasn’t sure how to, but she climbed up my body like I wa
s a tree, wrapped her legs around my waist, and I slid right in. She begged me to slam her against the wall and fuck her harder.”

  My mouth dried as I imagined Red’s body embracing my penis. I cleared my throat and angled away from Eli to hide my growing erection. “Did you?” I heard myself ask even though I told myself I didn’t want to know anything more.

  “Fuck her harder?”

  I nodded.

  “I felt sure I’d tear her in two, but she only begged for more.” Eli chuckled again. “Women might have velvety soft, wet pussies, but they sure as hell can take a lot of abuse.”

  I shot a frown at him. “Abuse?”

  “You know … hard use.”

  I wouldn’t know, but I think I understood what he meant.

  “There’s nothing like it in the world. Now that I’ve had a taste, I can’t think of anything else. I jerk off a couple times a day while thinking about having her again.”

  I peered out across the pond and farmland beyond, the neighbor’s tobacco green and thriving. “Do you ever feel guilty?”

  “Not one bit.” Eli cast again and tipped his straw hat back.

  “What about your parents. Aren’t you afraid of dishonoring them?”

  Eli’s carefree attitude melted a bit as his brow furrowed and shoulders tensed. “I don’t have a close relationship with my parents like you do.” His lips pursed, and I realized I shouldn’t have asked. I knew his father hadn’t spared the rod in Eli’s younger years. He’d often had trouble sitting on the bench beside me at school.

  Then again, Eli had always been mischievous and getting into trouble as a child.

  “I’m not going to get baptized into the church.”

  Eli’s quiet words hit me like a sledgehammer between the eyes, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. “You’ve made up your mind already?” I managed past the sudden tightness in my throat.

  “Yeah.”

  My gaze traveled over my best friend. Other than his way of speech and the stories he had taken to telling, one wouldn’t know he wasn’t Amish at heart. Broadfall trousers, a button-down shirt, straw hat, and longer hair hiding the tops of his ears … he looked like every other young man in our community.

  I didn’t want to know but had to ask. “When are you leaving?”

  He shrugged and glanced at me. “Toby said I could move in with him and his parents if I wanted.”

  My throat still tight, I glanced away and reeled in my line some more.

  “Just because I’ll be leaving someday doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m serious, Abel. I’m getting my license in a couple of months, and I’ve already applied for two part-time jobs.”

  “That’s gut,” I managed after clearing my throat.

  “You’ll have to run around with me. We’ll get you some blue jeans to go with that English haircut you’ve got, and I’ll take you to meet Melissa and some of her friends.”

  While I appreciated his wanting more for me than a simple life, I shook my head. “I’m not like you, Eli. I’m going to get baptized.”

  “Damn. You sure? Because, well, it just seems as though you aren’t giving yourself the chance to experience life beyond this.” Eli swept his arm out, encompassing the farm I had grown up on.

  “I’ve made my choice.”

  “For yourself, or for love of your family?”

  A hard question to answer, but Eli deserved to know my thoughts. “I couldn’t leave the faith. It would crush my parents. To be separated from them and my brothers and sisters … I just can’t do something like that.”

  “Well, if you decide to say fuck ‘em all and head on out into the world, I’ll be there waiting for you. And if not, I’ll still be your friend. No matter what.”

  My grin came out lopsided, hindered by the tears clogging my throat. “Same here, Eli. No matter what.”

  Chapter Three

  Two years later…

  Eli moved in with his friend Toby a couple of months before my baptism. It was for the best, seeing as how he had told me every sordid detail of his sex life, keeping my own sinful desires in the forefront of my mind. He’d dumped Melissa when Kelsie came along, and she didn’t last more than a month before another girl turned his head.

  He had been a bad influence on me, but I loved him like a brother and couldn’t bear the thought of turning from him as our community had when he left. I had memorized his cell phone number, but hadn’t yet found a reason to call—or a means to do so. Daed’s English friends in the furniture store had a phone, as did one of the English neighbors, the Johnsons, down the road a ways, but nothing of importance required I make a phone call to my cousin.

  Even though the beginning of Eli’s walk away from the Old Order had begun over two years earlier, my memories of Red and the first magazine he had shown me appeared clear and bright behind my eyelids whenever I closed my eyes. Night time especially proved to be a tough time. A raging hard-on, one of Eli’s favored terms I had eventually taken to, plagued me long before sleep claimed my body.

  Frustration and agitation became second nature, and I bit my tongue countless times a day to keep from snapping at my siblings or anyone else who did something to annoy me. Some days, I just wanted to rant and rave like a lunatic, blow off some steam and aggression in the hopes of lessening the tension knotting my insides.

  The night before my baptism, I lay in bed, the curtain tied back to let in the full moon’s light. I fell into a troubled sleep long after the moon passed its zenith, my balls aching and hard-on straining clear up to my belly button.

  A riot of red curls and flashing green eyes floated before me as Red crawled up along my body, her soft curves rubbing against my skin.

  My gaze honed in on her plump lips as they moved.

  “I want you to put your hands on me and mark me, Abel,” she whispered, sliding down onto my hard shaft. “Fuck me hard and fast.”

  I gasped and woke to find my hand inside of my underwear, sliding down my slick penis. “Fuuuuck,” the whispered word slipped past my lips for the first time as I tugged my underwear down with my free hand and swept my other hand back up to the mushroom head to smear more of the liquid leaking from its tip. Unable to stop, I clenched my eyes shut and slid my hand back down again, imaging Red riding me like the girls in Eli’s stories, my hands holding her waist, fingertips digging into her soft flesh.

  She overrode my mind, leaving no room for anything else but her. The way her body swayed atop mine as she filled her hands with her breasts. Her head tipped back, lower lip between her teeth.

  I imagined flipping her onto her back and holding her hands captive overhead while slamming into her over and over again as she begged me to fuck her harder. Taking what I wanted, her petite body beneath my weight, powerless to do more than wrap her legs around me.

  My hips lifted, and I moved my hand faster, up and down, until the wet suction noises drowned the heartbeat pounding in my ears. A tingle started in my toes, moved up through my legs, and into my pelvis, drawing my balls up tight against my body.

  Jaw clenched, I threw back my head and fucked my hand hard and fast, my heels digging into the mattress.

  Red…

  Semen erupted from my penis, and I bit the inside of my lip to keep from hollering as it spurted in long, white ropes up across my chest.

  Once the convulsions stopped wracking my body, I relaxed my legs out straight, hand still holding my softening penis, the other arm thrown over my eyes, blocking out the moonlight.

  I expected guilt to come crashing down on me, burying me beneath its weight, but I remained empty as my racing heart slowed. Satiated and at peace for the first time in months, I breathed a deep sigh.

  Eventually, I forced myself to move and cleaned the sticky mess off my body with my hankie from the bed stand. Planning to rinse it out in the morning, I tugged up the quilt Mamm had made for me and rolled over.

  For the first time in months, sleep came eas
y and dreamless.

  ****

  Naomi sat beside me in my open carriage as she always did on the Sundays we traveled to Gmay. The fall morning had a bite to it, but she had insisted on going with me, grabbing a quilt to lay across her lap before walking out of the house.

  “Are you sure about your decision?” she asked, not long after we set out behind Daed’s buggy.

  I inhaled until it hurt, my thoughts flitting back to my sin during the night. I had felt no remorse while washing out my hankie in the bathroom sink that morning. I had also yet to consider what I might reap from such an ungodly action.

  I wanted to do it again.

  “Yes,” I finally said.

  “Why the hesitation?”

  The side of my face prickled as though Naomi stared, but I kept my gaze forward between the horse’s ears. “It’s a big decision.”

  “Ya, and you’re only eighteen.”

  I had taken a step down the slippery slope Daed had warned me about, and the fact my conscious wasn’t bothered scared me. I needed to be immersed in the church—baptized into the fold lest I find myself in hell at life’s end.

  We drew near to the intersection where I had first seen Red two and a half years earlier. Jaw clenching against the lust and sinful thoughts that arose whenever I thought of her, I forced myself to focus on the choice I had made, the baptism a few hours ahead of me.

  For love of my parents, three sisters, and three brothers, I had made my choice. I would turn my back on the things of the world and make my commitment to Gott.

  ****

  “I desire to have peace with Gott and with the church.” I recited the words, the weight of my decision like a yoke on my shoulders. “And I request that the church prays for me.”

  Rebecca Lapp, my childhood friend and neighbor, knelt beside me, also agreeing to baptism.

  Bishop Stoltzfus stood before us, stern and unsmiling as always. “Can you confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of Gott?”

  I confessed my faith without thought.

  “Do you renounce the world, the devil with all his subtle ways…”