by Lynn Burke
While I had seen the same and figured it out as well, the fact my younger sister thought of such things made the hairs on my neck stand on end. “Promise me you’ll stay away from forward young men when you turn sixteen.”
Her sly grin and narrowed gaze twisted my stomach. “I’ll promise no such thing—but, I will promise to be careful.”
“And when you’re done running around?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the truth of where her heart lay and if she would leave her family for the world.
Naomi heaved a sigh and deflated. “Get baptized and marry a gut, Gott-fearing Amish man like you.”
Shaky laughter lightened my spirit. “I’m not always gut.”
She huffed again. “Yes, you are—straight through to your little toe. You were a model student through school, you always lend a hand when needed, and you yield to the Ordnung when you aren’t even a member of the church yet. You have more self-control than any person I know—including adults. I’ll bet you’ve never even had to ask Gott for forgiveness for a single thing.”
My smile slowly faded.
Covetousness. The stirrings of lust.
“I suppose you’ll court Rebecca Lapp like everyone expects,” Naomi continued, “get baptized into the church and marry the day she turns eighteen.”
I made a non-committal noise beneath my breath as I considered the neighbor girl I had known since childhood, the young woman who was more like a fourth sister to me than a love interest. A robust girl, only a few inches shorter than my six-foot height, with mousy brown hair and eyes the color of rich soil. Strong, self-sacrificing, and kind, she would make any man a gut fraa.
“You’ll be the perfect mann.” Naomi smiled up at me. “Daed to a dozen children who will all follow in your footsteps and join the church when their running around ends.”
“And you’ll be a wonderful mamm someday.”
“I’m never having children.”
I whipped my head toward her to find her head shaking and a grimace twisting her lips. “What?”
“You weren’t home when Mamm gave birth to the twins two years ago.”
I shifted in my seat, my gaze flitting away. Like sex, pregnancy and birthing weren't subjects I had ever heard discussed in our home.
“It was awful.” Naomi’s voice lowered as she frowned. “Mamm is the strongest woman I know and she screamed and cried like a toddler. Just … awful.”
Not sure what to say, I kept my mouth shut.
“You know she’s with child again?”
“Mamm?” I glanced over to find Naomi’s nose wrinkled up.
She nodded. “Surely you’ve noticed her expanding waist.”
“Can’t say I know much about that kind of thing.”
“Well, you’ll need to someday. Probably sooner than later if Rebecca’s parents and ours have anything to say about it.”
“They don’t,” I grumbled, slouching on the seat.
“Well, I for one hope you find a girl from another community, one who you’ll love madly until the end of time.”
I thought of the red curls and bright smile. “I hope, too.”
“You deserve that kind of happiness, Abel. Gott will certainly bless you for the life you’ve lived—especially if you behave during Rumspringa like you intend to do.”
“You’re my favorite little sister, you know that, right?” I asked, turning down the lane leading to the Fisher’s farm.
“Ya.” She squeezed my forearm in a rare display of affection. “Enjoy this time. Explore the world just a little, though. Then, tell me all about it so I have something to look forward to.”
I pulled up on the reins as my buggy drew abreast of our parents. “Sure I will, Naomi. For you.”
****
Trying to focus on the two messages turned out to be near impossible, my lack of self-control keeping my brow furrowed. The words from both Bishop Stoltzfus and Deacon King buzzed in my ears like a thousand honey bees as my mind replayed that brief moment at the four-way intersection. I begged forgiveness and prayed for clarity of mind over a dozen times, but to no avail. Gott either didn’t hear my pleas, or He decided to allow the tribulation my soul wallowed in.
Once the final hymn finished, I breathed deep and stood, stomach grumbling and ready for the community meal.
As always, I sat beside my best friend and cousin Eli Fisher whose parents’ basement we had worshiped in. We passed the dishes, but not before loading our plates. Light chatter and quiet laughter rose from the tables as family and friends fellowshipped around the food. While I had dozens of first cousins, Eli was the only male close to my age. Being the oldest in both families, we had spent a lot of time together as our mothers continued trying to supply us with brothers. Lucky for me, I had gotten two—just a few years too late to be comrades. Eli had better luck. After one sister, he’d gotten five brothers.
Stomach full to near bursting with pork, potatoes, and cabbage, I turned down the pecan and snitz pies while Eli stuffed his face.
Most families left not long afterward, and the youth group spent the afternoon playing volleyball. There were two other sets of parents besides my aunt and uncle acting as chaperones, but I found that didn’t stop the louder laughter and ribbing not usually heard during typical Amish gatherings.
Eli had been running around for a few months, and like me didn’t have one particular girl he wanted to date. We sprawled beneath a tree, sweating from the final volleyball game, glasses of ice water in our hands.
“Are you driving anyone home tonight after the singalong?” he asked.
The cold of the ice water burned a pathway down my throat. “No,” I answered once the ice clinked back into the bottom of my glass.
“Gut.” He shot me a grin. “I’ve got something you have to see after everyone else leaves. Something that just might finally corrupt you.”
“I’m sure I don’t want to see it, then.” I lifted my glass and jostled a piece of ice into my mouth.
“Trust me.” He nodded, his dark eyes promising trouble as I crunched the ice between my teeth. “You do.”
****
Much later and hoarse from singing for two hours, my curiosity overrode my better sense, and I followed Eli into the hayloft of their barn. While I held the kerosene lamp, he climbed high into the rafters and returned with a magazine clutched in his hand.
“Got this from my new English friend, Toby.” He sat on a bale, opened the magazine, and turned it toward me.
Lust kicked me in the gut, and I couldn’t speak.
A naked woman lay spread eagle and bound by ropes to a bed, a blindfold and some sort of ball gag in her mouth. A man loomed over her, whip in hand. Tear streaks lined the woman’s face. Red slashes marked her thighs. Wetness coated the pink folds of her sex, glistening, and set my mouth to watering.
The image burned into my brain—submission in an entirely different way than the Old Order’s definition of the word. Spirituality is submission, is what had been reiterated in my ears since childhood. Self-surrender. The willingness to give up oneself to the community and Gott’s chosen leaders.
I soaked in the sinful picture, and for the first time in my life wanted power. Wanted control. I wanted a woman’s submission like the man in leather beside her owned. Unable to tear my gaze off the image, I struggled to swallow.
“Didn’t know people actually did this shit.”
Eli’s curse, the first I had heard from him, barely registered past the blood rushing in my ears. My body tensed as longing to be the man standing over that woman, whip in hand, raced through me faster than any thoroughbred—or car.
The image of Red flashed in my mind, and suddenly it was her bound to the bed in the picture, breathing heavily, trembling, and begging for me…
“You okay, Abel?”
“I … ach, jah.” I blinked a few times and tore my attention off the glossy pages of Eli’s filthy magazine.
“You think that’s hot, wait until you see this one.” He turned th
e magazine around and flipped a few pages. “Up close and personal.” He chuckled and spun the magazine toward me once more.
The lamp trembled in my hand.
A woman lay on her back, knees pulled up, ankles bound to her thighs, and spread open, offering the up close and personal view Eli had promised. While the woman in the first picture didn’t have a single hair hiding her sex, the second had a riot of flaming red curls atop her pubic bone. A thick, white substance dripped from both holes of her body.
The desire to see Red like that brought a groan from deep in my gut that I couldn’t completely stifle.
“My thoughts exactly.” Eli laughed and turned the magazine toward him once more. “Toby set me up on a date next weekend with a girl he says is easy.”
I cleared my throat. “You’re going to have sex with her?”
“Sure hope so.” He continued to peer down at the magazine. “Can’t wait to find out if a woman’s body feels different than my hand and watch my semen drip out of her like that.”
I forced my attention away from the lewd picture. We’d been friends since childhood, and since Eli had begun running around, he’d started on a path to becoming a different person. “You … uh … you’ve masturbated?” I whispered.
“Lots of times.” He turned the magazine sideways and tilted his head as though hoping for a better view of what one couldn’t possibly get a better view of. “Haven’t you?”
My face heated. “No.”
Eli’s head jerked up. “No?” He laughed when I didn’t respond. “I thought every guy did.”
I shrugged, guilt over the magazine and our conversation making my feet itch. “I’ve got to get going.”
“Sure.” He hopped up and scampered back to the rafters to replace his magazine.
Without another word, we climbed down from the loft and made our way outside to join the peeping frogs beneath the stars. I handed him the lamp and climbed up onto my buggy I had hitched the horse to before following him into the barn.
“I’ll let you know how my date goes next weekend,” he said with a grin.
I turned on my buggy’s lamp. “I think I’d rather not know.”
Eli laughed. “One day, a woman will turn your head and make that obedient mind of yours go places you never dreamed of.”
If only he knew.
I called to my horse and we trotted away.
****
Every minute of the following week, the memory of the images I had seen filled my mind, leaving little space for prayer and reflection. Unable to help myself, my thoughts lingered on the ropes and markings … the dripping semen. I imagined binding Red in other ways, keeping her immobile for me to do with as I pleased. For touching, kissing, biting, marking her skin with my hands and a whip like the man had used on the woman in the picture.
I had the strength to refrain from taking myself in hand and releasing my sexual frustration, but while sleeping, I had no such control. Twice after sexual dreams, I woke to find I had ejaculated in my underwear. Horrified, I had dropped to my knees beside my bed and begged forgiveness, but the heavy yoke on my shoulders didn’t lighten.
What sort of man wanted to do such things to a woman? What sickness plagued me that I wanted to hurt the only girl I had ever been attracted to? I focused inward, ignorant and unsure of what had happened to my soul.
****
“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.
End of sample chapter
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