Page 34 of A Lesson In Beginning

“My what?” I asked quietly, turning my eyes back to the couple. The woman was shaking from head to toe at this point. The man was using multiple tools between her legs, making the entire thing look more like a ghastly torture procedure.

“Your orgasms. Have they not been something at least similar to this? I’m sorry for asking such a personal question, but you’ve piqued my interest on the matter.” Like that excused his forwardness, though I let the impropriety slide and simply shrugged.

“All I know is that what I experienced in my marriage bed was nothing like anything I’ve seen here. Nothing in the slightest.” I should have felt embarrassed by speaking of my marriage bed with another man, but there was something about Joel that made it different; not quite easier, but different. More palatable, perhaps.

“What was it like?” He cleared his throat slightly, showing his nerves at his boldness. It endeared me to him enough to feel comfortable answering.

“It was my calling as a woman of God to accept my duties in the marital bed without argument.” It was the easiest way I could answer. I did my wifely duties, but nothing in my experience as a wife had prepared me for the acts I had seen in this place. While it disgusted me to some degree, there was an openness to it, as though the people who frequented this place let go of any preconceived notion and simple were. And that carried weight within me. To be fully open and honest with oneself defied logic in a way that pulled me towards it, rather than repelled me.

“Have you not had an orgasm before, Adah?” He asked, sounding more interested than he ought to. My face flushed with embarrassment.

“If that is an orgasm, then most definitely not.” I crossed my arms over my chest, almost protectively.

“Would you like to change that?”

“Excuse me?” I turned to meet his gaze with shock. The audacity of such a question!

“Would you like to experience an orgasm?” He gestured to the stage, and I followed the movement with my eyes, my jaw hanging open slack at his temerity.

“I… um… I don’t know.” I stammered through the words, unsure of how I could possibly answer such a bold question. He leaned towards me. Though my eyes remained trained on the stage before us, I could feel his nearness; the warmth of him, the light tickling of his breath as he spoke.

“Well, if you’d like to learn, say the word. I’d be happy to teach you.”

“I think I’m just fine, thank you.” My back stiffened, my discomfort growing ever stronger. “I think I should head back to the kitchen now.”

Without letting him respond, I turned on my heel, marching my way through the crowd and back to the safety of the kitchen, where things made more sense. I could feel him behind me, following my every step, not that I gave him any acknowledgment.

Even as I entered the kitchen, ignoring Trixie’s exuberant greeting as I made my way to the cabinet and began pulling items from the cabinet, I paid Joel no mind or attention whatsoever.

I assembled the items along the counter, still ignoring Joel’s presence on the other side of the table.

“Are you alright, Adah?” He asked, genuinely concerned.

“Of course I am. It was just high time for me to get back to work. I would not want to take advantage of such a thing, nor would I want to leave Trixie here to do all the work on her own.” I looked up at him, only briefly, to smile and assuage his concern. Not that it assuaged a single bit of the nervous energy that still flitted around in my stomach at the idea of Joel teaching me such things.

No, I would simply ignore those thoughts and keep to what I knew: baking delicious goodies.

CHAPTER 12

I couldn’t get the images to stop dancing behind my eyelids every time I tried to close my eyes that night. I tossed, I turned. I read my bible, I even journaled, thinking it would quiet the thoughts plaguing me if I only got them down on paper. That normally worked. But tonight, it only made it worse.

If I were being honest with myself, it wasn’t truly the things I saw on that stage that plagued me. It was Joel. He was a paradox of epic proportions. In the kitchen and while we worked together, he was a wonderful friend. He made me smile more than I had in years. He was kind and thoughtful. But every once in a while, a look would cross his face. He would look at me as though he could see each and every one of my innermost thoughts. He would speak in a way that was dark and deep, stirring up feelings within me I dared not name. And I hadn’t. I hadn’t given it more thought than was required to shove it deep down inside of myself where I would not have to be reminded of it — or deal with it, as the case was.

It was that very feeling that had come swarming back up to the surface during that scene. When he had stepped behind me, his hands on my waist. Nothing untoward had happened, and yet… everything had happened in that moment. I could feel his presence in every fiber of my body, could feel the way his words touched something deep inside of me, in a way I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with. I had been around commanding men all my life, and where had that gotten me?

And yet…

It did not quell the aching between my thighs.

Tossing again in my bed, I was wholly unable to find a single position that was comfortable enough to allow me to drift off to sleep. Instead, as I found my thoughts fixated on that same ache between my thighs that had begun to pulse as I thought of Joel, my mind drifted back to the conversation between Ruth and myself from a few short weeks ago..

I was just overheated. That had to be it. The room felt stifling, and my clothes kept getting twisted around my limbs. It felt as though my entire body was flushed as thoughts continued to plague me despite my earnest efforts. Finally flinging the bedsheets off of me, I tiptoed to the door and closed it as quietly as I could. I turned back towards the bed, only to pause a moment later, glancing down at the doorknob. Or more specifically, the gold lock on it. I wrestled with the decision for only a matter of seconds before quickly flipping it to the locked position. I stripped my nightgown from my body, settling back down into the covers — this time much more comfortable, and far cooler than I had been before.

I closed my eyes, a smile on my face at finally finding genuine comfort — only to have my efforts thwarted once again as thoughts of Joel’s voice began to swim behind my closed eyelids. Only this time, he wasn’t telling me to breathe in an attempt to calm my nerves. This time he was telling me far more salacious and sordid things.

“Be good for me.”

My breath caught in my lungs, and that aching returned with a vengeance.

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