The things Reuben wanted to do to me played perfectly into the way I'd been brought up. It was wrong to question a man. Your own wishes were immaterial. You were irrelevant. Still, I couldn't help feeling on some level that what he was doing was wrong. I couldn't articulate why, but his ownership of me violated me. My father, who owned my body, had given Reuben permission to rape me. And yet some part of me resisted, as if I had any rights, and wasn't just a stupid girl, as I'd always been raised to believe on the commune.
My struggles with processing this consumed my headspace for the next two months. In the nights, Reuben came to me and used my body. But in the day, as I listened to the word, washed clothes, kneaded bread, I felt him inside me too. The thought of his ownership of me pressed in on my head, making me feel hot and small. Worthless. It tightened me and loosened me at the same time. Was this what God wanted for me? I thought of the way Abraham treated Hagar, and the punishment in the old testament for raping an unmarried woman - having to marry her. Those passages had always done something to me, so that I couldn't help wanting to touch myself as I read them. But for the same reasons, they also made me angry and ashamed. It had always been a bad thing to be a woman, ever since Eve ate that apple and made Adam eat it too.
Much like God, Reuben was everywhere. When he was physically with me, my mind at least could escape, but when he wasn't, his presence loomed over me like an ever growing cloud, capable of attacking at any given moment.
My father made this even easier for him. One otherwise ordinary suppertime, he asked me whether I was being obedient.
My father's question was vague, but I knew what he meant, and I could see on my mother's face to my shame that she understood too.
'Yes, sir.' I said quietly, putting some more food in my mouth in order to occupy it.
'Good girl.' He cleared his throat. 'I've talked to Reuben and we've agreed that you should make yourself available every evening, in case he decides to visit.'
I didn't know what he meant. I was already always available for Reuben.
My father smiled at my mother before looking back at me. 'You know, I think he has honorable intentions, Titia. He's a good man. So I'd like you to make sure you're in your room by eight every evening, so it's easier for him to see you whenever he wants to make a call. You want to make sure he still likes you, don't you?'
I faltered. There were other young men who liked me, and Reuben was in his early forties - at least twenty years my senior. What did Reuben have that made him such an irresistible candidate for my hand? I looked at my mother.
'Obey your father.' She said, with a placid nod. I don't know how she managed to say the words so easily.
I couldn't look at him, but I could feel a kind of heat coming from across the table.
'Yes, sir.' I said, before changing the subject.
----------
From then on, I went to my room early every evening as I'd been ordered. I tried at first to be productive in the anticipation of Reuben's arrival, but soon realised it was useless. The images of him, the fear of him arriving and taking me whenever he chose, were too distracting. I was an object. A kind of slave.
The truth of being completely owned was almost intoxicating. It made the air thicker. It became a habit, as I lay on my bed waiting for him, to edge my hands down towards my private parts and start rubbing furiously. I listened out for his footsteps, not allowing myself to breathe freely or make a sound, ready to leap my hand back and look like a good girl for him. He couldn't know. And yet I couldn't help humping and rubbing myself as I lay there anxiously, reflecting on my status as his whore.
My mind took me, as it always had, to strange, dark places. Reuben in concrete form didn't exist in these worlds, but men like him took a similar shape. As I humped my hands, waiting, these men would beat me, punish me, take me. They knew who I was.
I was far away in such a world one evening when Reuben crept in. At the sound of the door, my heart jumped into my face and froze.
It was something I'd always feared would happen, but which I'd always told myself I'd escape. I shot out of bed and brushed my skirts down, trying to assume a more modest pose, but it was too late.
'What have you been doing?'
His voice was disturbingly warm.
'I - nothing.'
'Nothing master.' He corrected. 'You've been playing with yourself again, haven't you?'
He fixed his eyes on me.
He knew. I nodded, unable to meet his gaze.
He seemed amused but made an effort to be solemn, moving closer and putting his hands on my upper arms. His voice was dripping and unbearable. 'Did it make you feel good?'
