Taboo The Collection Read online

  “Thank you,” Malachi spoke, his voice like liquid gold compared to Daddy’s rough timbre. His dark eyes met mine and I saw the resemblance immediately, with them standing side by side like that. “I’ve long been called to this work, and I only ask for God to give me the strength in my own hands to lead you on your paths as Hands of God.”

  “We are the Hands of God! We are the Hands of God!” The chanting began again, and I joined in, hearing the tremble in Abby’s voice as she did, too. Our hands were raised to them, but she hooked her pinky finger over mine, and I understood that she was as shocked and scared as I was. I knew we would talk about it later, but for now, we bowed our heads and raised our hands in worship.

  * * * *

  Abby and I had slept in the same bed since we were babies. Our little room was next to Daddy’s at the back of the house, and we still shared the twin bed we always had. Daddy had offered to put us into separate rooms, but we refused. The rest of the house was filled with his wives and their children, and I often felt out of place with them, like an outsider. Abby and I had our dark little cocoon at the back of the house and that’s the way we liked it.

  “Daddy says he’s been living in seclusion since just before you were born,” Abby whispered in the dark, her breath sweet against my face. We had both picked an apple to eat on the way back from evening service, where Mal (as he told us to call him) had officially been welcomed into the fold with his Homecoming.

  “But why?” I kicked the covers off my feet. It was too warm in here. “And where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We were quiet for a moment, and I could feel her belly rising and falling against mine. I remembered the way Mal had squeezed my hand and reached over to hug me. He did the same to Abby, really acting the long-lost brother. Daddy looked so pleased that I tried to look happy, and Abby did too. My face hurt from smiling.

  “I wanted to touch his hair,” I whispered and Abby giggled.

  “I wanted to touch more than that,” she said, putting her hand on my hip and pulling my belly fully against hers.

  “Abby!” I was aghast. “He’s our half-brother!” Although, technically by blood, he was really only mine. We never thought of each other as anything but sisters.

  She giggled again. “Well, I didn’t know he was our brother when I was thinking about it.”

  “Well… you’re my sister.” I could feel her breasts pressed against mine now, mirrors of my own, small and pointed and pink-tipped.

  “That’s different,” she whispered, stroking my cheek, brushing my hair out of my eyes. It was only at night that we could let our hair free. We should have braided it, as neither of us had ever cut our hair and it hung past our bottoms. We often woke in a tangled blonde mess in the morning.

  “Why?” I asked, feeling her thighs against mine, the familiar ache between my legs.

  “We’re girls, silly.” She tilted my chin up and kissed me. She tasted like apples, clean and sweet and delicious. Her tongue found mine and I moaned softly, reaching between my legs and cupping my mound, as if I could stop the ache there, although really I had discovered only one thing that could.

  Abby took my hand and placed it between her legs and I rubbed her through her long white nightgown, little electric jolts running through my body from every contact point with hers—her hand on my breast, her tongue and lips against mine, her other hand pulling my nightgown up and stroking my thigh.

  She rolled on top of me then, straddling me and lifting her nightgown up over her head, tossing it to the floor. Her hands edged mine up too, the material rubbing across my nipples, making me shudder. Then her mouth was there, sucking and licking at them, and I could feel the heat of her wetness as she rocked her mound against mine. It was always such a delicious tease, her lips rubbing against mine like that. It made me moan and whimper.

  “Shhhh,” Abby urged, kissing her way down my belly. “Don’t wake Daddy Zeke.”

  “Ohhh!”My voice was barely a whisper as I spread my thighs for her, feeling her parting my lips with her fingers, her tongue searching and finding that tender, swollen bud at the top of my cleft.

  It was just last year she taught me how to rub it in fast little circles until I was breathless and dizzy and thought I was going to die. First, I watched her do it, leaning back against the wall with her legs open in this very bed, saw her head go back and her eyes close, heard her moan and then saw her whole body flush and shudder. It made my breath come fast and something throbbed between my legs.

  So I did it with her, both of us rubbing there, rubbing and rubbing until I thought I couldn’t stand it anymore, that I was going to burst or die or—and then one day it felt like I did die, when the whole world exploded into a burst of delicious, pulsing white light and heat. I called it Heaven, although Abby said one of the Hand boys told her that it was called “coming.” Once it happened, I couldn’t get enough of it.

  Abby’s tongue moved back and forth over that sweet, sensitive spot, and I rubbed my palms over my nipples, sending pleasure waves down through my belly toward my hips. Everything was centered where her mouth was licking and sucking, soft, wet friction that made me wiggle and pull at her hair, wanting more.

  “Come here,” I whispered. “Let me do you too.”

  I’d been so scared the first time I tasted her, not knowing what it would be like. She did me, that first time, telling me one of the Hand boys had done it to her one day way out in the orchards. It was a sin, a horrible, awful sin, although she swore he hadn’t put anything inside of her. We still wouldn’t put anything inside the virginal space for fear of being deflowered.

  After her tongue had sent me to the most intense, astonishing, breathtaking Heaven I’d ever been to, I’d felt obligated to do her too. She said I didn’t have to—but I did. Now, I loved to taste her—it made me even more excited, feeling her flesh against my tongue, tasting her sweet juices as they ran down my chin.

  Abby moved her slender thighs over me, spreading her legs as she positioned herself. I grabbed her hips, pulling her against my mouth, licking and sucking, wild and unrestrained. It made her moan against me, sending waves of divine pleasure humming through me as she continued her exploration between my legs.

  Her tongue flicked faster and faster and I made small noises in my throat, urging her on as I licked her little, swollen spot, back and forth, again and again. She was making noise now too, and I loved her noises and how her thighs tightened and her hips rocked, using my tongue for her pleasure.

  I found myself fast approaching the gates of Heaven. It wasn’t a sweet, slow spiral upward anymore, now I was flying, racing headlong toward exquisite release. When Daddy talked about freedom and salvation, I thought this was what he meant, this journey toward ecstasy.

  Abby’s tongue and mouth were a soft, wet, glorious push. I moaned and twisted underneath her, wrapping my arms around her hips and feeling her mash herself against my face, my tongue buried in the folds of her flesh until I could barely breathe, but I didn’t care.

  It started like Daddy’s sermons, like a small earthquake, rumbling through my pelvis and shuddering my hips as I bucked and arched. Abby made little noises, knowing the sound and feel of me at my pinnacle, licking faster than ever. I gasped and moaned and forgot about her spread over my face for a moment, lost completely in my own paradise.

  “Rachel,” she whispered, her fingers moving there, still, sending jolts through me, and I put my whole mouth over her in thanksgiving, rolling with her until she was on her back. She gasped and wiggled, her breath fast and her hips rocking as I licked and licked and licked. Her hands gripped my bottom, her nails digging into my flesh, but I didn’t care. I could hear her making that “ah, ahh” noise she made when she was close.

  “Oh God, Rachel!” she cried, gripping my hips and arching her back. She quivered under me, her belly convulsing, undulating, the little bud of flesh under my tongue pulsing with her pleasure. I didn’t stop, still teasing her with my mouth until she be
gged.

  “I can’t stand it,” she cried, half-laughing, half-sobbing as I flicked my tongue over that sweet, sensitive spot.

  Finally, I turned around to her and we kissed, the taste of our flesh mingling in our mouths. She didn’t taste like apples anymore, but she still tasted sweet. I retrieved her nightgown, and pulled mine down, snuggling back into bed and pressing my behind back against her hips, never imagining that it might be one of the last times we ever did this.

  “I love you,” Abby whispered, draping her arm over my side.

  “I love you too,” I whispered back, closing my eyes, still tasting the sweet juices of my stepsister in my throat.

  “I have to tell you something.” I heard a catch in her voice that made my eyes open in the dark. “Daddy Zeke has decided. I’m going to be married.”

  “What?” I stiffened, and then relaxed, laughing. “Don’t joke, Abby!”

  “I’m not joking.” She kissed my shoulder and then pressed her forehead there with a shaky sigh. “I’m to marry Malachai next month.”

  “I can’t believe it.” I felt a tight ball of coldness clenched in my belly at the thought, along with a hot streak of jealousy. I knew I shouldn’t feel that way. He was my half-brother, after all—but he wasn’t hers. Not by blood. So this was how Daddy Zeke would continue his empire after he was gone, how he would bring more members into the fold.

  Abby choked out her words. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t lose me.” I turned and took her into my arms, knowing that our bonds, blood or not, could never be broken. “I’ll always be your sister.”

  I saw his face that night in my dreams, our new preacher, Mal, and I wondered about him, holding onto Abby as she drifted off. I knew we couldn’t run away together or fight what Daddy Zeke wanted, but I was determined to make sure of one thing—I wouldn’t ever let anyone separate me from Abby. We would be sisters—and lovers—forever, no matter what.

  In the Barn (Sibling Lust)

  My adopted brother masturbated in the barn, way up high in the loft, lying alone in the soft, clean hay we shoveled down for Da to feed the animals. I didn’t understand at first, what he was doing. I think he would have heard me, that first time I climbed up the ladder, ready to tell him Ma needed a hand moving something in the kitchen, if he hadn’t been about to make a mess. I saw him, lying down, black hat tossed aside, head cocked at a funny angle, and at first I panicked, thinking he was hurt. But then I heard his fast, labored breathing, saw his hand moving between his legs, and knew he was holding onto his privates.

  But what could he be doing to them?

  I stood frozen on the ladder, eyes wide, as his hand moved faster and faster, like lightning, up and down. He gave out a soft moan, his hips bucked up, and I stared, shocked, as thick, white streams shot over his fist, up onto his bare belly, where he’d pulled up his shirt.

  I knew it was a sin. It couldn’t be anything but. Instead of confronting him that first time, I snuck down the ladder as quiet as I could. I told Ma I didn’t feel well—and no, I didn’t find Eli in the barn, I said—and went to my room, which was really mine and Ada’s and Becca’s together.

  I felt sick, remembering what I saw, but I was curious too. What could he have been doing with himself like that? The sounds he made were sort of like he was in pain…but why would he be hurting himself? And at the end, the shock of the liquid shooting from his privates…it wasn’t pee. I knew what that looked like. My littlest brother, Isaac, had peed on me enough during diaper changes for me to know the difference.

  I lay there a long time, feeling funny down low in my belly, playing the scene over and over in my head. Eli was the eldest, in his twenties now, me just behind him, turned eighteen last spring. He was Ma’s sister’s boy really, but when my aunt died of sepsis soon after he was born, Eli’s father had left our order, too full of grief to stay, and the baby had stayed too. My parents had raised him as their own and we had known each other as brother and sister from the beginning. I knew I shouldn’t have watched him, knew I shouldn’t be feeling the way I was, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

  That’s when I decided to watch Eli, to see if he did it again. It was the next afternoon he disappeared from the side of the house where Da had him stacking wood. I was hanging laundry and saw him head to the barn, so I followed.

  This time, I saw it all, from beginning to end. I peeked over the top of the ladder to watch, even untying and taking off my white cap—a sin in and of itself—hoping the darkness of the barn would hide me, and let my brown hair blend into my surroundings. If he looked over, he would only see that—the top of my head and my wide eyes. I watched him lie back in the hay, unfasten his pants, and start touching his privates.

  It was soft at first—a small snake in a nest of hair—but the more he touched it, the bigger it got. I stared, aghast, when it stood straight up, more than double its original size. Eli licked his palm, calloused from hard work, and wrapped his fist around the length, moving his hand up and down, just like the day before.

  His breath came faster and faster—and so did mine. That funny feeling was back in my belly, low down, cradled in my pelvis. Something ached there, throbbed, like a tooth does, only it wasn’t a hurtin’ sort of agony, but a delicious kind. I wanted more of it. And the more I watched, the more the feeling swelled until I felt like I was going to burst.

  It wasn’t long before he was moaning again, whispering, “Oh, oh, oh!” and then shoving his privates up into his fist, the thick white stuff flooding out the end. There was so much of it!

  I didn’t go to my room this time. Instead, I hurried down the ladder and went back to hanging laundry, but the gnawing tickle took a long, long time to go away. Eli’s hand touched mine when I asked him to pass me the milk pitcher during dinner and I thought the heat rushing through my torso would make me faint. He gave me a funny look, but I just kept my eyes down and finished eating.

  Still, I didn’t stop watching. I couldn’t. I felt compelled, even though I knew it was a sin, I knew the devil was in me, and I had to rub him out. I tried. I did. I stood on the ladder, watching my brother pump himself like he was a well, waiting for the blessed moment when the liquid finally surfaced, and I lifted my long skirts to touch myself too.

  I didn’t have what he had. Girls and boys had different parts, I knew that much from changing diapers for Ma when the babies needed it, but I never knew how complimentary the parts were, how different and yet how similar. I pressed myself there over my undergarments while I watched him, worrying myself between the legs again and again. I knew if someone came into the barn—if Da had come in…my blood curdled just thinking about it.

  But he never did. And one day, when Eli was thrusting up into his hand and I was at my usual spot on the ladder, watching, I felt the little tickle between my legs build to a sneeze. Something had to give. My fingers moved, back and forth, around and around, my whole body tingling with sensation, and then…it happened.

  The world exploded.

  I cried out—I couldn’t help it—my whole body trembling with the force of the devil inside of me, and I wondered briefly if I had finally driven him out. My legs wouldn’t hold me. They turned to jelly and I fell, catching myself halfway down only to lose my grip again and land, hard, on the dirt floor below.

  “Sarah!” Eli was calling. I was okay, but dazed, breathless, still stunned by what had happened, and I didn’t answer him. He took the ladder two rungs at a time, sweeping me up over his shoulder and carrying me back up like I was a sack of potatoes.

  When he had me on the hay, touching my face, calling my name, I finally opened my eyes. He was concerned, but embarrassed too, and I knew he was wondering how much I’d seen. Oh, Eli, I’ve seen so very much, I thought, catching his hand and bringing it up to my heart.

  “I know it’s a sin,” I whispered, lifting his fingers to my mouth and kissing them. “But I can’t help it.”

  “Help…what?” His dark, puzzled eyes
met mine, and I searched his earnest face with my heated gaze.

  “I saw you,” I admitted, feeling the heat move into my cheeks. He flushed, too. “Eli, it was so wonderful!”

  “Sarah, I’m sorry.” His eyes dropped to the hay. “It is a sin. I shouldn’t. I need to stop. I know you’ll have to tell Ma…or Da.”

  “No.” I swallowed hard at the thought and cradled his hand against my cheek. “I don’t want to tell.”

  “But…”

  “Something that feels so good can’t be a sin,” I insisted, half sitting now, back on my elbows. “It can’t possibly. I just…I understand now. Why you keep doing it, how the whole world opens up for a moment and you feel like you’re dying, or flying. I felt like I could touch God himself.”

  He was staring at me, wide-eyed. “How long were you watching?”

  “I’ve watched lots of times.” I lifted my chin, defiant, in spite of my flushed cheeks. “I touch myself too.”

  Eli gaped. “Where?”

  I hesitated before slowly placing a hand between my legs, over my long skirts. “Here.”

  Puzzled, he frowned. “But you don’t have…”

  “I know.” I shrugged. “But it feels good, all the same.”

  His eyes brightened, still focused between my legs. My hand still rested there. “Will you… show me?”

  Stunned, I stared at him for a moment, unable to breathe. The sort of sin I’d committed so far was nothing compared to what he was asking. Only babies were allowed to be naked in front of others. I looked into his eyes, saw the eagerness, the hunger there, the longing I felt too, and slowly I started to lift my skirt. His gaze followed its path, up my knee-sock covered calves, and then my bare knees. He gasped when he saw those, his eyes following the path of my skirt up my bare thighs until I had it pulled up to my waist.

  Then I pressed my hand between my legs, over the heated, damp mound there, and began to rub myself. He watched, fascinated, his breath coming almost as fast as mine.