I was a stranger in this commune. Unaware. “You… you join with them… carnally… and bring them back here, to the Lord’s Eden… to New Zion?”

Phebe sat straighter, almost proud. “Yes. And I have brought back most of our converts. How else do you think we get new members?”

“And… Judah? You are now with Judah?”

Phebe smiled and I could see the affection she had for our prophet’s twin brother. “I am. He tells me I am worthy to stand by his side. I am an example to our women of how to use the Lord’s message and to show ungodly people the true path.”

I could not breathe. My lungs were constricting, my chest was growing tight, and I could not breathe!

“Delilah?” Phebe dropped to her knees and felt at my clammy head. “Are you unwell?”

“Yes,” I managed to say. “Please, I must rest. I am tired.”

Phebe sighed and quickly exited the room, leaving me alone. I must have fallen asleep on the bed, for when I heard somebody walk through the door, I jolted awake on a gasp. The room was in dark shadow. I realized I must have slept the day away.

My back faced the door, but when heavy footsteps moved toward me, instinct had me scurrying to the head of the bed.

“Little Rebekah—oops! No, it’s Delilah now, is it not?” a deep voice said, and Brother Micah walked into the dregs of daylight squeezing through the window.

I inhaled a fearful breath. His frame was formidable. His brown hair down his back, a long beard flowing down his chest. His brown eyes were small and narrow, his face seeming to adopt a permanent scowl. He was tall and foreboding… He was the man to save me?

Brother Micah closed in and towered over the bed. “You are beautiful, Delilah, truly a vision.”

I watched him intently, watched his lips tighten. Brother Micah turned his back and began lifting his tunic. I did not dare look away as his skin began to show. Then I could not look away when his entire back was revealed, unable to contain my sharp, shocked gasp.

Micah glanced back. “You see what your whoring temptation did to me, Delilah?”

Wide slashes marred his back. They were everywhere, from the bottom of his neck to the bottom of his spine. He had been flogged, lashed… just as Jesus was.

Micah spun around and glared down at me. “Do you remember that night, Delilah? The night you came into my room and taunted me with your sweet smile. Tempted me with those blue eyes. I was in rapture of your looks. Prophet David had just preached about how to touch and please a girl, about how our caretakers at The Order would begin to touch us to introduce us to the Lord’s love.

“And I had loved you for years, for as long as I could remember. And it was not just a childhood infatuation. You consumed me, my every thought, my dreams, every fiber of my body. I thought about you incessantly, about how you could be like one of those girls in the coloring books.”

Micah’s eyes hooded and I watched as he reached down to his crotch with his hand, revealing his excitement. He took a step forward, then another, until his knees hit the mattress at the end of the bed. His hand began stroking up and down his length, and nausea built in my stomach, vomit edging its way up my throat.

No… please, Lord, please save me… spare me from Micah’s wrath, I prayed.

“I learned to touch myself to your image. Learned how to bring pleasure and transcend to get closer to the Lord… all to those pretty eyes and plump lips.”

Micah’s palms hit the mattress, followed shortly after by his knees. I had nowhere to go; I was trapped. Fear kept me a prisoner on the bed.

But then his eyes glazed with something else, something I could not decipher. “The devil within you spoke to my innocent and God-fearing soul. And you, with your sinfully beautiful face, lured me in. You made me fall from grace. I was tempted and I was weak!”

Micah worked his hand harder against his length, his breath panting, sweat building on his chest. Releasing his grip for but a moment, he crawled forward, forcing me on my back until he hovered above me, fisting his penis again.

“After my father caught us, you were taken away because of the witch that you are. And me, I was punished for not resisting. You had tempted my father and he had prevailed. But not me. I had succumbed to you. I had succumbed to evil. To a harlot of Hades.”

I could not speak, unable to do anything as Micah bent down, his breath washing over my face.

“I was taken to the hill of perdition, my arms roped between two trees and my tunic ripped down the center. My father took a lash and awarded me with thirty-nine stripes, just like Jesus Christ.”

“I am… I am so sorry,” I whispered, my terror creeping into my voice.

Micah paused in his self-gratification. A bead of salty sweat dropped on my cheek. “Sorry? I do not want nor do I need your apology, whore. With every whip of that lash, I rid my enchanted mind of your spell. With every burst of pain, I promised the Lord I would never fall again. I committed every strike to memory and promised myself if the Lord should see fit to put me in your depraved path again, I would become a solider of Christ and fight Satan for your soul.”

A scream tore from my chest as Brother Micah’s hand began lifting up my long dress. His fingers did not stop crawling up my thigh until they hooked around my undergarments and pulled them down my legs, discarding them on the floor.

“Stand,” Micah ordered.

I did as requested. I was no stranger to this situation. In fact, it could have been Brother Noah above me; I had lived this moment a thousand times over.