The feeling of the sofa dipping beside me snapped me from my thoughts. Judah sat beside me. He was holding the remote in his hands, the TV screen was fuzzy, waiting to show me whatever Judah had brought.
“What is this, brother?” I asked. Judah’s happy grin spread back on his face.
“Your choices,” Judah answered cryptically, and pressed ‘play’ on the remote. At first I did not know what I was looking at, it was outside, somewhere in the commune. The amateur-looking tape then cut to a cream wall, perhaps the wall of the people’s accommodations?
I motioned to Judah with my hand, about to ask him to explain what this was, when suddenly the image of child came onto the screen. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old. But that wasn’t what had me fighting back nausea. No, it belonged to the fact that she was naked, but for flowered garlands in her hair. And she was dancing. Dancing to some tinny sounding seductive music playing in the background. And she was shaking. Her tiny body was shaking as a voice—that I recognized as Brother Luke’s—told her to dance for her Prophet. The girl tried to move to the beat, but fear made her movements jerky and out of time.
My chest tightened so much that it rendered me unable to speak. Then Judah elbowed me in my side. I glanced to my left to see my brother watching the screen, his teeth grazing over his bottom lip.
He was a stranger to me at that moment.
“What do you think, brother? You could take her as a wife, or a consort. She is about to reach the age of her awakening.
“Her awakening?” I questioned.
Judah nodded his head and paused the video, the frozen screenshot landing on the little girl’s face. Her terrified face, her eyes wide and face pale.
“Brother Luke has taught me all about Uncle David’s ways. And one is a female’s awakening. The day she becomes a woman in the eyes of our faith, a vessel for our men’s celestial meditations.”
This time vomit did creep to my throat, but I pushed it down to rasp. “There is nothing of that in our scriptures.”
“Our uncle talked of new revelations by the Lord in his sermons to the people. Not everything was recorded officially, just in his private letters, therefore it did not reach us in Utah.” Judah sat forward, excitement radiating from his body. “There is so much we did not know. So much I am learning from Brother Luke, and the other disciples. The Lord has blessed us with much, Cain. More than I ever expected.”
Judah flicked on the screen and that awful music began playing, but I could not look up.
“If the last was not to your pleasing, there are many more. How about this one?” I looked up to see an older girl, more developed, dancing seductively. And unlike the small child, her eyes were confident, her bare body moving slowly to the beat. She could not have been more than fourteen.
Fourteen.
A child.
Judah began flicking through the DVD, tens and tens of naked children dancing for the camera. And the more images came on the screen, the more excited Judah became. I could see him shift on his seat as his eyes bored into the screen.
I closed my eyes as I tried to calm my heart, when suddenly, a conversation held with Mae shot into my brain. When I had tried to make her stay with me in commune. The fear on her face should have made me believe her, but I thought that she was lying, wanting to return to Styx… but what if…
“Have you ever been part of a Lord’s sharing? Have you ever seen an eight-year-old girl raped, her legs pried apart by a bear trap because she was too scared to understand what was happening to her? Have you ever forced yourself inside a child, Cain, because you believe it will help you get closer to God and because the prophet deemed it so? Well, have you?”
I froze.
“Well?” Mae pushed.
“Did that happen to you? Here?” I asked, the thought of Mae being taken as a child causing me to see red. “Mae! Answer me! Were you… taken as a child… like… that?”
Mae’s eyes filled with tears and she nodded her head. “Are you telling me you have never been in a brother-sister exchange?” she asked again, this time in disbelief.
I dropped my head, unable to meet her eyes. “I am the heir. I remain pure,” I informed. I had been locked away my whole life. I had no real idea what happened at the commune, under my Uncle’s rule…
Anger infused my muscles, and as Judah elbowed me again to look at that damn screen, I jumped to my feet and screamed, “FUCK!”
My hands raked through my long hair and Judah got to his feet. At the movement I stared him down. “What the fuck is this, Judah? They are kids! Tiny kids and teenagers dancing for me to choose? You think I want a kid? You think I want to fuck a kid?”
Judah’s face blanked at my outburst, as I forced myself to calm down. Taking a deep breath, I walked to the screen and switched off the TV. The silence that filled the room was deafening. I could hear the harsh sounds of my breathing. Finally, gaining some composure, I faced Judah.
“You think this is okay? To rape children at age eight?”
Judah’s eyebrows pulled down in confusion. “It is the Lord’s will.”
I shook my head. “I do not think that the Lord willed children to be taken this way, brother. It’s barbaric!”
Then shock filled my every cell when Judah’s jaw clenched and his face hardened. “Older men married young women in the bible. This isn’t news to you, brother.”
Squaring my shoulders, I stepped forward and said, “Have you taken a child in the Lord’s Sharing? I know you attend them, but have you done… that?”