Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 180(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 180(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
I looked at my mother. “Do I have to do this?” I still enjoyed playing with my doll. I wasn’t mentally ready for the label placed on me.
“You’re a woman now, Margarete. This is something we all go through. Once the change happens, we proceed with the ceremony. It provides us with protection. It lets other men know to stay away.”
We walked into a room with other families. Everyone was dressed up and smiling at me. Mommy held my hand and walked me to an altar. It looked pretty, with flowers adorning the sides and a white sheet and pillow on top. I felt like an angel.
Papa Gabriel stood beside the altar. He smiled at me before nodding to the guests. I noticed none of the kids were there. Everyone was older than me.
“Why are none of my friends here?” I asked Mommy.
“Only adults and those who’ve gone through the ceremony are welcome.”
Papa Gabriel passed me a drink before I lay on the altar. I took a sip but didn’t like it. The liquid was too strong and burned as it went down. I coughed a few times, but Papa told me to keep drinking. I closed my eyes and pinched my nose, chugging the liquid like a glass of cold water on a hot summer’s day. A few seconds later, I became light-headed and didn’t even feel it when Papa brought the hot iron to my skin. The pain came the next day and for many days after when I changed the bandages to avoid infection.
CHAPTER 10
Xander
Isit in the darkness, an interloper watching a scene that isn’t meant for me.
The voyeurism was initially a product of my desire. Not only for Maggie but also for Hans. I’m ashamed to admit that my desire runs the better part of me, and I requested these rooms because I knew the setup. Years ago, Lev, the mansion’s owner, set up an intricate security system to spy effortlessly. Even though the system has been removed, the infrastructure still exists, allowing me to put my plan in motion.
Unlike me, Lev wasn’t diseased. He used the cameras for the safety of his loved ones. Perhaps he also watched for pleasure, but it wasn’t his driving motivation. When I went upstairs to with Maggie’s and Hans’ luggage, I secreted a few small cameras in their room—one across from the bed, one in the walk-in closet, and another in the bathroom. When we settled in for the night, I pulled out my laptop and tuned in for the show.
At first, I thought I’d be watching them sleep, but then it shifted, and I found myself sitting here, my erect dick in my hand like a twelve-year-old boy with his father’s dirty magazine.
I’ve become accustomed to my right hand during the last three years. Besides those few encounters with Hans, it’s the only action I’ve seen.
For some reason, the day Maggie turned eighteen, I lost my libido for anyone but her and Hans. My morality became convoluted, and my reflection in the mirror began to disgust me. It’s fucked up being sexually attracted to a woman I’ve known since she was a child, especially as I’m eight years her senior.
I suppose the silver lining is that I’m not as perverted as I thought because I never put cameras in Maggie’s childhood home. Until this moment, I’ve never seen Maggie without clothing. My gaze caresses the swell of her breasts, and I wish it were my hands roaming her flesh.
My excitement is quickly doused when Hans discovers the brand on Maggie’s hip. I’m shocked when I see the scar on her flesh. I stare at the monitor as Hans lovingly moves down her body and kisses the burned skin, trailing his fingers along the raised edges.
“Does it still hurt?” he asks softly.
Does it still hurt? Of course it hurts, you moron.
They marked her when she got her first period. Those monsters see women as nothing more than possessions. They only protect them from rape after their menstrual cycle starts because that’s when they become capable of getting pregnant.
I laugh bitterly at the fucking mental gymnastics of the lunatics. They marry off women on their twenty-first birthday for appearance’s sake, so the world believes their cult isn’t breaking any laws. Look at us, offering a traditional, wholesome way of life. What the world doesn’t know is that this cult of barbarians also touches children in ways they should never be touched. And brands them to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Wouldn’t look too good if a twelve-year-old was knocked up. That would give the government reason to barrel through their doors and fuck up all their shit. Although, I’m not sure any government entity gives a fuck about child abuse since so many states allow children to marry.
My mother had a brand. In my mother’s case, the branding didn’t stop my sperm donor from assaulting her. I wouldn’t be in this situation had The Covenant punished the man who violated her. I might have even believed that The Covenant was the righteous path to God. Unfortunately—fortunately?—that wasn’t my outcome. I was raised by a man who believed in righteous retribution for a woman he loved, a woman so broken that no matter what he did, nothing could repair the damage inflicted on her.