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He went down the line like the snake handler had done only moments ago, and he sliced into the tender flesh of each woman’s left forearm, letting a small amount of blood trickle out. The men watched with smiles on their faces.

“Embrace the pain,” my father boomed from his pulpit. “Even though you have been found clean, the seeds of sin always lurk within a woman’s body. Bloodletting and pain will force some of that natural wickedness to leak out.”

I endured the pain of the cut by clenching my teeth together as hard as I could. Finally, it was all over, and we were directed to return to the safety of the shelter.

My friends and I helped each other wrap our bleeding forearms in bandages, and then we bade each other goodnight and returned to our quarters. I let out a moan as I collapsed onto my bed, partly from exhaustion and partly from the aching in my left arm.

We were all taught to endure silently. Women were responsible for the birth of all sin in this world, and therefore it was our job to withstand any and all pain. Not only that, we were supposed to enjoy it. I did not enjoy this, though, and I was having trouble staying silent.

I required a distraction from the pain.

Slowly and tentatively, I reached into the gray pillowcase behind my head and pulled out a book I’d hidden there the other day. It wasn’t comfortable to sleep with it there, but it was the only place I thought it might be safe from prying eyes.

I already knew how to read when New Eden was created, and the girls who were born here over the last decade were all taught to read as well. However, we were only supposed to read His Word or recipes so that we could cook properly for the men.

Temptation had made its way into my world last week. Some of the men had ventured out into the Wastelands to find other survivors to trade with, and they had returned with several enormous boxes of ingredients for the kitchens. I was tasked with unpacking the boxes in the kitchen, and surprisingly, I saw a colorful book tucked between two bags of flour.

One of the outsiders from the Wastelands must have accidentally put it in there. At first the sight of it terrified me, because I worried I would burst into flames if I so much as touched it. After several harrowing moments of indecision, I finally grew bold enough to pick it up, and something deep in my mind compelled me to take it and hide it in my room.

I knew I should feel guilty for that, but it was just a book. A purely fictional story written before the Great Reckoning. The characters did not seem evil from what I’d read so far, so what harm could it do?

There was something strange about the book, though. Inside the front cover, it said the number ‘2006’ under the date of printing. I knew that couldn’t possibly be the real publication date, as the Great Reckoning happened in 1999, so it was clearly a misprint, but it was odd all the same. I vaguely remembered keyboards from the old world, and mistakenly typing 2006 instead of 1999 was quite a silly error to make.

Hiding my head under the blankets, I squinted at the pages in the dim light and continued the story. It was about a man and a woman who were pretending to be in a loving relationship with each other in order to please the woman’s overbearing mother. It sounded bad, as they were deceiving their families and friends, but the material was written in a way which made it funny. I was greatly enjoying it.

I kept reading. The man and woman seemed to be falling in love now, and they wanted to be together. The words describing it were so strange to me. So illicit. I loved our God and I loved my fellow Path of the Covenant members, but romantic love was a thing of the past. My father said it was a sin which consistently led people astray from the righteous path.

It didn’t seem so bad, though, from the way this old-time author was talking about it. In fact, it reminded me of a little crush I once had on a teenage boy who came to visit us on the ranch one day in the old times, when I was only seven years old. Mason Ashwood.

I still remembered it like it was yesterday. When I first laid eyes on him, my heart fluttered, my stomach had butterflies, and my knees wobbled like mad. For a dizzy moment, I was rendered totally speechless.

What I felt for that boy didn’t seem evil. It seemed pure and light and innocent. I’d thought of him often in the last few years, and it saddened me to think of how he’d very likely perished when the bombs dropped so long ago.

I turned the page. Moments later, I muffled a scandalized gasp. The couple in the book were now committing an act of the flesh, and they were not married. Worse, the woman was enjoying it, which was a terrible sin. Only men were allowed to obtain pleasure from copulation.

The writer had gone into great detail, too, portraying every single second of the act. Every private body part was described, along with the thoughts and pleasurable responses the characters were experiencing.

I slammed the book shut and hid it back in my pillowcase, my heart racing. Ardent heat was spreading throughout my body, radiating from somewhere deep in my belly. I’d felt this hot tingling sensation several times in the last few months, especially whenever I thought about attractive men. I knew it meant lust was growing in me as the Devil lingered nearby, waiting for me to serve him instead of my own God.

I tried to pray to keep the feeling at bay, but my mind conjured up an illicit image before I could stop it. I saw my childhood crush, Mason, as a fully-grown adult. The way I imagined him, he was the most handsome man in the world. I pictured his piercing hazel eyes with slight crow’s feet around them and his once-bare jawline with a dark smattering of stubble on it. Then I pictured his body with more muscles and a deeper tan. For a fleeting moment, I imagined he was the main male character in the book I had been reading.

The images multiplied. Now I saw myself as the main female character from the book, and I saw Mason doing all the lustful things to me that the scandalous chapter had described.

The heat in my body intensified. I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to do something or else I might explode.

Reaching all the way under my blankets, I bunched my white nightdress up and widened my trembling legs. With halting movements, I pressed my hand to the area between my thighs and slid my fingers into my thin cotton underwear.

I wasn’t supposed to touch this area, let alone imagine my hand was actually someone else’s, but that was all I could do right now. My mind and body seemed to have been possessed.

“Mason…” I whispered. My fingers circled faster in the forbidden area. There was something there, some sort of swelling which needed to be rubbed in order to relieve the terrible yet strangely wonderful pressure within.

Pleasure bloomed in my belly, and I was struck with the sense that my legs and arms might shatter from how good it felt. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, an even more pleasurable sensation ripped through my body, making me gasp as stars danced before my eyes. My legs quivered, and I slammed my free hand over my mouth to stop another loud gasp from tearing free.

The pleasure faded. It was replaced with a sense of shame so strong I almost wanted to throw up. How could I have done this? How could I have let this happen?

I was disgusting. Sick. Immoral. I let the Devil in, even after witnessing an execution for a similar kind of lust only hours ago.

I leapt out of bed and kneeled on the floor, looking up at the ceiling with my hands clasped together. “Please forgive me,” I implored in a frenzied whisper. “I know I have sinned. I am so very weak. So very unclean.” Tears gathered in my eyes, and I swallowed hard and went on. “I’m just a woman. I am not naturally strong or pure like the men. Please give me another chance to serve you properly, without sin clouding my judgment. Next time I promise I will be stronger. I will resist temptation.”

I closed my eyes, imagining what would happen if someone had caught me. My hand may have been cut off as punishment. Worse, my father and the Elders might have decided to send me out into the Wastelands, where I would succumb to the toxic waste before burning in the flames of hell for all eternity.

I slapped myself in the face, hard, and as the pain spread over my cheeks, I made a vow to myself.

I would never give in to lust again.

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