That night, the night my father had given me to Reuben to do almost anything with me, was the longest of my life. It was also the first time that Reuben properly talked to me.
We had left my father's room, Reuben with a curt smile and a final expression of thanks to my father, and me following him with my head down, my chest pounding. When we got to my room and he closed the door softly behind us, he finally spoke.
'So, are you going to be a good little girl for me? You heard your father.'
I had heard my father, but I was beginning to wish I hadn't. I looked up at him with a dumb face, and he sighed roughly, with satisfaction.
I couldn't compute what was happening. How had this man, with his beard and complicated, wrinkled eyes become so involved with me? What did he want with me? He had been touching me for months but I still couldn't fully understand it.
I was uninteresting to him surely - just a stupid girl of twenty-one with no special spiritual gifts and little understanding of the outside world. It was true that I had always been at the top of my class, but I was only a girl, and a girl can never truly compete with a man's intelligence. I had known that since I was a young child. I felt so insignificant when I listened to him teach or talk about complex things with other men, or even when I just looked at his shoulders and arms. I was weak and soft. And yet this man was looking at me with so much interest. What could he possibly see in me?
'I can tell we're going to get along well, Laetitia. But you're going to need to do everything I say. And you must never, ever, tell someone about the things we do together again. Okay?'
His voice and face were calm with the natural authority he felt. It washed over me. I nodded. 'Yes sir. I'm sorry.'
'Good girl. Now get down on your knees.'
I knelt obediently before him, my mouth feeling small, as he began to unbutton his trousers.
'Good. Close your eyes.' He took my hands and clasped them together in front of me. I realised with a rush that he wanted to see me as I looked when I went to prayer every day.
I heard him groan with a low voice, as if he was unable to stop himself, and he finished unbuttoning his trousers. They fell to the floor, a small bit of fabric touching my knees.
He didn't have to tell me to open my mouth. He pressed himself between my open lips and soon my whole mouth was full of him. He forced himself in slowly at first, and I was able to make sure my lips covered my teeth so it would be a smooth experience. My cheeks felt tight and my head bobbed in and out for him, rolling his thing along my tongue and swirling it around him.
My eyes stayed closed and I kept my hands up, just beneath my mouth as I sucked, clasped together. Had he been stealing glances at me all this time in the prayer room, imagining himself standing in front of me, my whispering mouth ready to suck him? Or did he want to have the picture for himself for tomorrow, the next day and the next when he was teaching me and the other women, so he could look at me, my hands clasped together, my eyes closed, on my knees, and secretly know that he owned me?
Soon he was moving his hips frantically in and out too, with no regard for my mouth. He overpowered my throat and I had to relax it in a certain way to make sure I didn't choke, as I'd taught myself to do over these months.
With Reuben in my throat, my mind flashed back to the wet patch I had seen on my father's trousers just a few moments before, after he had been spanking me and holding me down for Reuben to spank. Had my father secretly enjoyed having me on his lap, rubbing myself all over his trousers as he spanked me and held me, the way Reuben was enjoying me now?
When I thought of it, there had been a big bulge in my father's trousers when I had bent over his lap for him to spank me. Instinctively, my lips let out a little murmur around Reuben as I sucked him. He moved faster and faster into me.
'Good girl.' He said, and his voice reminded me of the way my father said it too. He grabbed the back of my head with both of his hands and directed me in and out, over and over, even though I couldn't fully breathe. He had complete control of me. He had begun to gasp, no longer worried about being quiet as he had been before my parents knew he was raping me.
Or was it even rape now, when my father had given me away to him? Certainly I had no choice in the matter, but wasn't that something for my father to decide? In any case, Reuben felt able to moan as he pushed himself over and over again into my throat, and I could hear him getting more and more excited, his long fingers pulsing up and down on my head, sometimes squeezing my long hair and pulling it as he used me.
It felt like an age before he finally released himself, dripping into my throat, which I kept obediently open, though it was almost impossible. I half swallowed, but he stayed inside my mouth until he had retracted a long way, soft and small inside me, my lips at the base of him, pressed up as far as they would go, my nose against his groin.
There was a certain pride to having this man soft inside my mouth, knowing I had pleased him. My tongue ran affectionately over him, unable to help myself from continuing to gently suck. I opened my eyes and saw that he was smiling down at me. His fingers ran through my hair and gently massaged my head, like I was a dog. This little gesture, my interest in continuing to suck him, made him so pleased. He slowly drew his soft thing out of my mouth and I leaned forward to kiss the tip of it as it drooped between his legs.
'You're a very good girl, Laetitia. You need me, don't you? Don't worry, I'll be here to take care of you from now on.'
He stepped out of his trousers and unbuttoned his shirt to reveal his broad chest, which I had never seen before. I looked wonderingly at this man, with his worn eyes, his massive shoulders and protruding belly, so much older than me, and he took my clothing off me too with surprising ease. He went to the door, gently turning off the light. Then, softly, he returned. He picked me up and laid me down in my bed, and then got in beside me, as though he were my husband.
Obedient as I was, I was terrified. Was this big man going to stay in my bed all night? Could he do that now, with access to my body the whole night? I had hoped that if I pleased him once and felt him in my throat, he would leave and visit me again some other night, as was his usual way. But that was before this new arrangement.
He wrapped his arms around me possessively, turning me towards the wall, and yauned. It was late and we were both exhausted. I caught his yaun and closed my eyes, although I felt it would be impossible to sleep in the arms of this strange man.
After perhaps a few hours of blackness, I woke to feel his hands fondling my breasts. He was still there.
My eyes were gritty, but I felt him pressed close against me. His big belly was tight against my back and one hand was wandering all over my body, the other groping my breasts one by one as if he were trying to decide which he liked best. He was squeezing my nipples, hard. I didn't like it, it was too much, I was scared. I jolted.
'Shhhhhh. Be quiet now, Laetitia.'
That voice of warm authority again. It silenced me, and I lay stiff while his hands searched me. He was still squeezing my right nipple intently.
'Shhhh.'
My eyes began to get accustomed to the darkness and I could make out the folds of my half open curtains as I lay there passively. His other hand moved over my belly, my thighs, my hips, seeming to feel my softness with his strong, calloused hands. I thought again how old he was. Was he enjoying the feeling of my youth? Was he enjoying the knowledge that I was a woman old enough to be his daughter, and yet that he was in my bed, his hands all over me? I thought of the way he smiled when my father gave him his blessing to use me, and I shuddered.
His hand made its way to between my legs. 'Dirty bastard', a voice said in my head somewhere. No, he wasn't dirty. He was just taking me. It was natural that he would put his hand there, regardless of my feelings. He was a man.
His three middle fingers explored the area between my thighs, his other hand still twisting my nipple painfully, refusing to let it go. He felt the shape of my lips down there, the thick mass of my hair, my soft wetness under his warm, firm hand. Gasping, he buried his middle finger deep into my labia to find the opening of my slit, the one place he would not go out of respect for my father. Very lightly, his finger traced up and down between my inner lips, pausing each time he got closer to that forbidden hole before moving back up again.
I had very little pleasurable feeling in this exact area, but there was undeniably something interesting in this. It was like a game to him. His finger pulsed and nibbled lightly at the edges of my opening, never pushing too heavily, but obsessively stroking it.
'Good girl. Good girl.' He whispered, his breath soft on my cheek. He was pressing against my backside now, which was still sore with the welts from earlier, and to my horror I felt him big and hard against me again.
His finger still stroked at the opening of my slit, and he pushed himself against me just as repetitively. His breath was heavy and churning. His thing was nestled between the cheeks of my backside. It felt soft and firm at once. Although it was hard, though, it at least didn't feel like much danger in that exact place.
I was yet to find out what my father meant when he rested his hand there and suggested there were other ways to use me that left my virginity intact.
Reuben moaned, softly. He was still pushing against me, his belly melting into the small of my back, but he moved his middle finger up from my slit to my face, resting it against my lips. I looked at it and after a few seconds, stopped pretending that I didn't know what was obvious - he wanted me to suck it.
I had never tasted my own juices. They were different from his. Sour, but also sweet, and much less thick. I sucked harder. His finger tasted salty too, and was so smooth. I was disgusted, but decided I liked the taste of myself on him. He was grunting as I sucked, rubbing himself up against me.
He took his finger out of my mouth. My slit called out to him, expecting him. But instead, softly, I felt his hand rest against the welts on my behind, just as my father had done.
The silence was deadly. Then, very gently, but quite deliberately, his finger pressed against the hole there. My other hole. My heart seemed to stop. I hadn't even thought of it as another hole until now, but strange stories that I hadn't believed rushed to my mind and it suddenly dawned on me that he may have felt differently about that place for quite some time.
He was breathing very heavily now. He circled the area with his finger. And then - a move that I didn't think was possible - he poked it hard. His finger crept, agonisingly, just inside my hole.
