Back to the Garden Read online

  “Go,” he commanded, sitting rigidly in the living room chair, waiting.

  She made her way to the kitchen, swaying a little as she walked, as if the world were slightly tilted. She found it in the drawer next to the stove, buried underneath the can opener, the vegetable peeler, other more often used utensils.

  It was a big wooden spoon. She thought it had belonged to her mother’s mother, heavy and thick, with a large flat-backed head. She held it in front of her, like she was taught to carry a knife or scissors as a little girl. When she offered it to Adam, her hands trembled. He looked up at her, and her heart ached with contrition, and something else, feeling the sacrifice of Luke, the last vestige of her hope, pushed out the front door. Why did her heart feel torn right in two?

  “Daddy, please,” she whispered, sinking to her knees and bowing her head. Her hair fell like a waterfall across her tear-stained face, hiding her, and she was grateful. “I know it was wrong. I will pray for my sins. I will repent, I will...” She took a quivery breath, and felt his hand in her hair, finding her chin and lifting it.

  “You will,” he confirmed, nodding. “Yes, you will. It’s the least you’ll do. But Lily, this is no small thing. This isn’t a hidden CD or candy bar or magazine.” He looked pointedly at her and she knew he remembered, too, the last time she knelt here like this, years and years it had been. She’d been such a good girl, she tried so hard to please him, to meet his impossible standards.

  “I know, I’m so sorry,” she pleaded, reaching her trembling hand out to him. He let her bury her face in his lap, and he stroked her hair absently as he talked.

  “No, Lily, I don’t think you do know. This night of all nights, you should have been surrounded by God’s children, praying, keeping your soul intact and pure. Evil forces have taken you over, child. I can feel them in you. I can see them in your eyes. You have been tempted, and you have succumbed. You lied to me, Lily,” his voice shook and she sobbed harder in his lap. “You deceived me. You dressed yourself like a whore, a pagan slut, and went out among the wolves, as a sheep amongst the wolves. You brought home a boy and let his carnal lust overtake you. This is beyond sin, Lily. This is...” he paused, searching for a word that might encompass her actions, and finally settled on: “This is depravity.”

  The weight of his words was crushing her and she could barely breathe through her sobs. He sighed, his hand smoothing the hair away from her wet cheeks. He sounded truly sorry, even reluctant when he said, “It must be punished.”

  She shook her head in his lap, but then she started to nod. “Yes, Daddy, yes, ok, yes,” she breathed.

  If this was her punishment, then, the humiliation of being whipped like a willful child, so be it. Anything would be better than his words, his anger, and most of all, his disappointment and disillusionment.

  He pulled her across his lap, it was a quick movement, and she gasped out loud. She tried to balance herself across his long legs. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, and his thighs dug into the soft flesh of her belly, her hands pressed the floor, attempting balance, her body steepled at a strange, arched angle, like an upside down “V,” with her bottom thrust up to create the apex.

  He reached under her chin, pulling the tie on her red hooded cape, and tossed it off her to the floor. She hadn’t realized how much warmth the material had been providing, and the cool air on her body, across her back where her blouse was pulled up, and especially her not oft-exposed legs, was a sudden, shivery shock.

  Adam’s hands pulled her skirt up higher. It had creeped down during her walk to the kitchen. She heard his sharp intake of breath and felt herself flush, remembering how sinful the panties she was wearing really were. She was mortified. He pushed her skirt up even higher, high around her waist now, and his hands seemed to linger over the scant material of her disgracefully sheer panties. Her body tensed, waiting.

  “‘Virgin daughter of Babylon,’” he said, his voice hoarse. “‘Make bare the leg, uncover the thigh... thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen,’” he quoted and then quietly cleared his throat.

  She held her breath as Adam’s hands grabbed the edges of her panties and yanked, tearing the delicate material and exposing her completely. She wiggled, looking for a more comfortable position. His hand found her backside and he spanked her hard, making her still.

  “Lily, you are a sinner. Say it!” he demanded.

  “I am a sinner,” she repeated, her voice muffled in the cascade of her hair.

  “Yes, and ‘if ye will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be against you!’”

  With that, his hand came down again, this time on the other side, making a red mark she would have for days. She whimpered, feeling the humiliated sting of her tears along with the sting on her bottom. “You are a whore. Say it!” he demanded.

  “I am a whore,” she whispered, closing her eyes against it.

  This time it was the spoon, harder and more wicked somehow. She heard it slice the air before it hit her tender skin. Again. Again. Again. She sobbed uncontrollably, and she heard him working furiously on her, the pain searing her bottom and the backs of her legs.

  She tried to twist away, but he grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled, and she stopped, caught. His breath was coming fast and he allowed her to sink across him, limp and aching and crying.

  His hand, now cool and soft, smoothed the red flesh across her bottom. It was a tender caress, and she looked back at him through her hair in wonder. He wasn’t looking at her, but rather watching his hand on her, his eyes dark. She felt a lurching feeling in her belly, and then he saw her looking at him and met her eyes.

  “The lips of a strange woman drop as honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil... her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword,” he murmured.

  Lily shrank from something she saw in his eyes. “To play the whore in your father’s house, Lily... did you know, in biblical times, that was a sin punishable by death?”

  She nodded. She was a preacher’s daughter—she knew scripture inside and out, almost as well as he did.

  “Did you let him know you, Lily?” He lifted his hand from her thigh and saw wetness there. “This is his seed, isn’t it?” His voice trembled, she thought from rage and she was terrified, but still she nodded. “Did you?” he demanded again. “Did you let him know you in the Biblical sense?”

  “No, Daddy,” she whispered. “No, we didn’t, I swear.” Her whole backside was tingling and felt raw.

  “But you’re a liar, aren’t you, Lily?” he crooned, his hand still moving over her bottom, as if he were in a trance. “How can I know that?” She stared back at him, unsure.

  “I think...” his fingers kneaded the tender flesh of her thighs, spreading them gently open. “Lily, I think I’m going to have to check for myself,” he said softly, almost regretfully. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropping open.

  He can’t possibly mean...?

  “Spread your legs,” he whispered, nudging her thighs apart with his hands.

  “Oh, no, Daddy,” she pleaded, her face reddening. “Oh please, no.”

  His fingers found her anyway, she knew they would, opening her lips and she felt him rubbing gently up and down. His voice was full of disapproval: “You’re very wet.”

  She knew she was and she hung her head lower.

  “Did you let him put his tongue here, Lily?” he asked her.

  “No, Daddy,” she lied after a moment’s hesitation, too ashamed to admit to the startling and delicious pleasure of Luke’s tongue, especially now as Adam’s fingers moved over her as an aching reminder of the unfathomable difference between the sensations of tongue versus digits.

  “Liar!” he boomed, and his hand came down hard on her bottom. She yelped and squirmed in his lap. “I saw you,” he hissed. Her body went still, and she lay incredulous. Just how long had he been watching? She wondered. What had he seen? Her fac
e grew redder, and the heat spread downward, through her chest, her belly, settling low there, like a fireball.

  “You liked it, didn’t you?” His fingers probed her, opened her, slid up and down in her wetness. “You liked it when he licked you here, right here?”

  Oh no, oh God, his fingers had easily found that place, that tiny swelled spot, and she moaned softly. He tapped it remotely with his index finger, like he was trying to send morse code, and succeeded in sending electrical impulses through her whole body.

  “Yes,” she breathed, finally admitting it, finding herself opening her thighs further, arching her back a little so he could reach her more. He seemed absorbed, just absently petting her there, and it felt so good she was dizzy with it.

  “You touched his cock, didn’t you, Lily?” he asked, probing a little more deeply. That word, from Adam’s mouth, made her breath stop. She’d heard it before, but nothing like it ever from him, ever.

  She nodded, a whispered, “yes.”

  “Did you like it?”

  Another whispered, “Yes.”

  “Say it, Lily,” he urged. “Tell me how much you liked his big cock.”

  “Oh Daddy,” she breathed, feeling his fingers slipping through the tender folds between her legs. She felt ashamed of the wetness there, and for what she’d done with Luke, and for liking what Adam was doing to her with his fingers, and for wanting him not to stop.

  God help her, she had wanted Luke, and now she wanted Adam, too. A wave of lust and nausea washed over her simultaneously. He was right. She was depraved. She couldn’t seem help it, or to stop herself from responding truthfully. “Oh Daddy, I liked his big cock...very, very much.”

  “You are a sinful girl, Lily...a very sinful girl.”

  “Yes.” She swallowed hard, agreeing to anything, anything, praying he wouldn’t stop touching her like this, the sensation beyond dreaming.

  “But you didn’t let him put it here, did you?” His fingers moved now, away from that little button of flesh, and they opened her more, probing, pushing into her.

  “Oh, Daddy, ow, ow, no not there.” She wiggled in his lap, trying to close her legs. He grunted with the effort to keep her there, and when he moved, she felt something against her belly, something hard and thick. She flushed with embarrassment and excitement when she realized what it was.

  “I have to know, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I have to know if you’re still intact.”

  His fingers, first one, then two, moved in deeper, but it was too much and she screeched, “It hurts, please, stop!” but he didn’t. Slowly he moved his fingers, in and out of her. His thumb moved against her, finding her again, the sensation divine, and she moaned a little, unable to stop herself, getting used to being filled this way. His breath was coming faster, she could hear it, and hers matched it.

  “It feels like you’re telling me the truth,” he told her after a moment.

  He swallowed hard, moving his fingers out of her. She sighed, part of her wanting him to stop, part of her never wanting him to stop, wanting more. She didn’t move in his lap, and she heard him struggling to control his breathing, his hands now resting on her thighs.

  “Daddy?” she finally asked, looking back at him. She found him staring hungrily between her legs. The look in his eyes sent a shockwave through her. She wet her lips. Did he want her? she wondered. Did he really want to touch her as much as she wanted him to touch her?

  “‘God is faithful... he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear,’” Adam muttered, and his hands pressed into her thighs, pressing her weight down onto him, so she could feel the length of him, how hard he was, against her belly.

  He let out a shuddering breath. “Oh Lily, tempt me not.” It was barely a whisper.

  She couldn’t help herself, something was compelling her. Maybe it was the devil, she didn’t know, and she found in the moment, she didn’t care.

  He whispered, almost to himself, “‘But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed...’”

  “‘What is this that thou hast done?’” Lily whispered, quoting scripture. Her heart beat hard and fast. “‘And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat...’ I did, Daddy, I did ...” she confessed, sliding slowly off his lap to the floor and resting between his legs. He looked down at her, transfixed, brushing the hair away from her face, his fingers lingering along her lips and mouth.

  “There are serpents in the world that will tempt you, Lily,” he told her softly. “You should know them. You should know how they behave, what they will try to take from you. I want to show you.”

  He unbuttoned his trousers, unzipping. Her eyes widened, her breath coming short. She’d never really seen one erect. Not this close, not like this. She was both curious and shy.

  “Give me your hand,” he said, and she did. He wrapped her hand around it, and again she was shocked by the heat, how it pulsed and seemed alive in her hand, truly like a thickly muscled serpent, with a life and will of its own.

  “Daddy?” It was a question, a pleading—she didn’t know what to do.

  He breathed deeply, looking down at her, and showed her how to move her hand on it in a way he seemed to like. She stared at it, at the tip, like an eye watching her which had starting to weep.

  “‘The serpent beguiled her, and she did eat,’” he murmured, his hand slipping behind her head. “Put your mouth on it, Lily,” he instructed. She stopped altogether, hesitating. He smiled down at her.

  “This is what you wanted with that boy, isn’t it?” he asked her, his voice a little harder now. “You liked his big hard cock, you said. You wanted it. Well, this is what he wanted from you, Lily. This is how the serpent tempts and beguiles, and it isn’t always what you thought, is it?”

  Her eyes and mouth were wide as she shook her head.

  “Now,” he rumbled. “Suck my cock!”

  He slid her mouth down on it, and she nearly gagged. Oh dear God, no, it’s too big, too much! He groaned, pressing further into her throat, holding her head still with his hands and moving in and out of her mouth. Slowly, she got used to the taste, the feel, the motion, and began to respond to his excitement. Soon she could feel the wetness between her own legs beginning to seep down her thighs.

  She caught his rhythm, and began to take over, hungry, eager, looking up at him, willing to please. He let his head go back, let her take him into her mouth again and again, let himself be carried away in the sensation for a moment. Then he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back so hard she gasped out loud.

  “Stand up,” he directed.

  She did, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. It was red and swollen, like she’d been stealing and eating overripe raspberries.

  “Undress.”

  She stood there for a moment, then swallowed hard. She hadn’t been fully naked in front of him since she was very little. She hesitated, but when she met his eyes, saw the hardness there, she pushed her skirt down over her hips and slipped her bodice off. She didn’t know what was going to happen and she was scared, but also a little wild with wanting something, some hazy, vague something.

  When she bent to remove her knee socks, he stopped her. “Leave them.”

  She was suddenly cold, her nipples hard.

  “Sit here.” He pointed to his lap.

  She turned, lowering her bottom, the fabric of his pants rough against her thighs. She looked over her shoulder at him, her hair spilling like some ribbon of black highway over her pale skin. She remembered, just a few months ago, seeing a similar look in his eyes when he’d forgotten to knock on her bedroom door, something he had done more and more recently, she’d noticed, and he’d opened up to find her sprawled on her belly on the bed in only her nightgown, her hair falling down all around her.

  He had stood in the doorway what felt like a long time, startled by her, maybe by himself, the rise and fall of his chest betraying his increasingly rapid breath. She remembered turning a little, to see
him better over her shoulder, aware it made her nightgown shift and pull, probably exposing her panties, aware she should cover herself, and deliberately not doing it because of how his eyes had settled there like he’d seen a glimpse of heaven and simply couldn’t look away.

  She thought that was the night he’d left the books on her bureau, but she couldn’t be sure. Now when he looked up at her, the look in his eyes was like he was falling off some cliff, and she felt herself going with him.

  He touched her all over, just roaming her like she was a map he was trying to read with his hands. They were large, warm hands, cupping the fullness of her breasts, lifting them, letting them fall, pulling her back toward him with one hand at her waist, and it was then she felt his hardness pressing against her bottom, like a brand.

  “Up,” he urged, and she stood between his legs, looking back at him again, curious.

  “Bend over,” he instructed, and she did, using her hands on his knees for balance. His fingers found her, even more slippery there now, sliding in and out a few times. He grabbed her hips and guided her slowly down, aiming, her dark curly pubic hair hiding the pink flesh of her inner lips slowly beginning swallowing his cock.

  “Oh Daddy, no, no, we can’t,” she whispered, feeling the tip of him meeting a taut resistance in her, but looking at him, she saw it was lost, he was lost, and he grabbed her hard and thrust upward, sinking deeply into her hot, wet flesh.

  It seared and burned like hellfire between her legs and she began to shake. “Please, Daddy, don’t, no,” she pleaded, moving forward, wanting him out, it was too much, too full.

  “This is what you wanted,” he growled, letting her fall forward, onto the floor on her hands and knees with her red cape as a cushion. She felt wetness on her thighs, and reaching her hand between her legs, she discovered blood and was horrified.

  “This is how the serpent will bewitch you, how he will deceive you and betray you and make you his!” He pressed her down to the floor, and she covered her face, crying silently into the red cloth. She struggled, gasping at the size and feel of him, pleading, but he was persistent, pressing so far into her she feared that she would tear apart.