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Jolie

“Jolie. You there?”

I gazed off dreamily into space, barely aware of Lauren’s voice.

“Jolie.”

This time her voice was louder, and she grabbed my shoulder. I jumped. “Sorry, were you calling me?” I asked.

Lauren smiled as she folded a piece of clean clothing. “Yes. You’ve been looking dazed for the last few minutes. I thought you were sleeping with your eyes open.”

Martha Chase was in the laundry room with us, the usual sourpuss expression on her pinched face as she helped with our current tasks. “You’ve been like this for the last two weeks, actually. It’s like you aren’t even here,” she added.

I hurriedly picked up some dirty clothes to scrub in my washing tub. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Lauren smiled again, eyes sparkling with curiosity. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

I hesitated. I couldn’t tell her the truth and admit that I’d been sneaking around everywhere with Mason over the last ten days. Especially not when Martha was around. It was the truth, though. That was the main reason I’d been so distant and vague in recent times.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about being with Mason when I was supposed to be working. Couldn’t stop picturing every single inch of his body and replaying every exhilarating memory in my mind on repeat.

We must’ve had sex twenty times now, and it got better every single time. I’d learned so much, too. There were so many different positions. So many new words to describe everything. So many things both of us could do to heighten the other’s pleasure. Our own as well.

Last night, Mason had taught me how to pulse my muscles on his cock—what a thrilling word… cock—so that I could make him come without him even having to thrust back and forth inside me. It was almost like I was milking him, and the look on his face when I mastered it made me so proud that I felt like I might explode with joy and scream until everyone ran down to find us.

The idea of possibly being caught somehow added to the pleasure, despite the terrifying consequences. It was a forbidden thrill. We knew exactly what we were risking, and every time we had sex knowing someone else was only a few feet away, snoring in another bedroom, the risk only added to our passion and urgency.

Sometimes I would wake up in the morning riddled with guilt and shame after a particularly passionate dream about Mason, but then I would remember to push those feelings away. I was not a sinner. What Mason and I were doing with each other felt so good it simply couldn’t be wrong, no matter what His Word said.

Besides, even if it turned out that everything my father wrote in His Word was true, that meant I was already bound to damnation in eternal fire after doing it the first time. So I may as well keep doing it and enjoy the fruits of sin and temptation while I was still alive.

“Jolie?” Lauren was still pressing me. Martha was looking on with interest, too.

I sighed. “It’s just… um… I’ve been thinking a lot about the Joining ritual tonight.”

Understanding dawned on Lauren’s pretty face. “Oh! You’re nervous.”

I nodded. “Tonight will be the first one I’ve attended in weeks.”

I hadn’t attended a Joining since Mason’s arrival at New Eden three weeks ago. The first week, he’d dragged me away before anything could be done to me. The next week, I’d had my monthly bleeding, rendering me unclean and untouchable. Last week, on the night of the most recent ritual—the one my father had ordered me to participate properly in—the majority of New Eden members hadn’t attended, as a bout of stomach flu had suddenly swept through the commune. Mason and I didn’t get sick, but we both lied and said we did so that we could sneak around with each other instead of attending the Joining.

I couldn’t put it off any longer, though. I had to attend the ritual tonight.

“Don’t worry about it.” Lauren patted me on the back. “I know it hurts, but that’s a good thing.”

“It’s our duty to experience pain,” Martha added with a sage nod.

“Yes. Of course.” I smiled and returned to scrubbing clothes, making a mental note to stop acting so strangely. Right now, no one was suspicious about Mason and me, but if I kept up this vague dreamy act, people might start to wonder what was wrong with me. Then they’d start to talk.

After finishing the day’s tasks, including the preparation of dinner, I ate quickly and returned to my room to rest my legs before the Joining. There was a knock at my door a short time later.

It was Mason.

“We can’t do anything now,” I whispered, eyes wide as I peered over his shoulder and down the hall. If anyone saw us together, we’d be dead.

Mason held his palms up. “I’m not here for that. I have something to show you. A surprise.”

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