A Vision of God

* * * * * The rest of that week my brother and I would kiss occasionally when we were alone. We knew because we'd never seen my parents kiss that it was not something that was supposed to be done. It was sinful and it was wrong. But it was also fun. It made me feel so lovely. But I should stress that we didn't really understand what we were doing. Part of me longed for Joseph to take me in his arms and hold me tight while he kissed me. But I didn't even know those were actions a person could take. Our kisses were chaste, both of us in the barn, sitting next to one another, and lovingly putting our lips together. Except for the fact that each kiss lasted about two minutes, they weren't even particularly inappropriate for a brother or a sister. Of course, we didn't know that.

Every time I kissed Joseph I was faced with four distinct kinds of feelings. First was pure elation. It was such a magical thing, the connection I felt when I kissed my brother. I'd never known you could convey love with your body, to pass your emotions to another threw your lips and skin was a revelation. I didn't know how I knew that part of what I felt was love, but there must've been some connection between a kiss and the heart, because I felt it nonetheless. Second, I felt closer to my brother each time. As I said, we were always close to one another, but something felt different now. When I looked at him I ached inside and I found myself blushing around him. I noticed that I liked the way his face looked in a way I hadn't before. I noticed his strength and his humor in a more appreciative way than before. I didn't know why it was happening, but those feelings made our kisses more magical. Third was an intense and unaccountable frustration in my body. I knew there was something my body was telling me I needed to do. When I kissed my brother my heart beat so fast, my cheeks flushed, my nipples hardened, and my private area became dripping wet. I knew that my body was begging me to do something, but I didn't know what it was. Finally, I felt fear. Each time I kissed Joseph we were one step closer to being caught. I didn't know what punishment would be in store for us, but I knew that it would be bad. Of course, this fear was never enough to stop. In fact, all four of these new feelings, all at once, complemented one another. It made my life more exciting and more fun that it had ever been before, more than I'd ever imagined it could be.

It was only two weeks after our first kiss that Joseph once again brought new and startling information back to our home. I could tell the instant he got home from market that he was more excited than usual. He was nervous and shifty our entire dinner. His impatience was exacerbated by the slow pace of dinner. Father had made more money than usual that day and he was in good spirits. While we slowly ate our stew, Father regaled Mother with the highlights of the day. Mercifully, the story ended eventually and Joseph and I rushed out to the barn and began unloading the merchandise.

"What are you so excited about?" I asked, excited myself. But Joseph would not skip ahead. We had a ritual and, as usual, he started at the beginning of the day and told me everything. By now some of the things that had seemed so strange before were becoming commonplace. At least, hearing about them were. I no longer had hundreds of questions about short pants or about sunglasses. And, in a matter of a few minute, Joseph ran through his entire day. No new revelations, everything seemed quite routine.

"Then what are you so happy about?" I asked.

"What do you mean Anna?" Joseph asked with false innocence. I could tell he was lying and reached over and smacked him three lightly on the arm. He grinned at me, "Okay, okay!" he said, lifting his hands to defend himself.

"What are you smiling about you rat?" I asked, laughing as well. Joseph looked around the barn conspiratorially. Then he reached down the back of his pants and slowly lifted something out.

"This," he said with reverence, and laid a rectangular packet of papers down on the hood of the truck. I walked forward cautiously. It was made of glossy paper and had a red border around the outside. At the top of the packet was a single word "TIME" and there was a picture of man with gray hair on the front. The fourth man I'd ever seen. I now know that Time is a magazine, and a rather dull one at that, but at that instant it was amazingly precious. Suddenly, I felt tears rising in my eyes.

"Joseph," I said, my voice cracking a bit, "Thank you so much..."

"Anna," he replied, "I know that you wish you could come with me, but I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad, if you could see a little of what I see." My brother had taken an incredible risk. Surrounded by the other men in the Light and the Way, including our Father, he had carefully snuck a little piece of the outside world back with him. To share with me. I dropped the magazine onto the hood of the car and wrapped my arms around my brother. He laughed a little. Then, I turned, my eyes still blurry with tears, and kissed him. There was something different about this kiss. Every other time we'd kissed it had been after careful deliberation. This was just a natural reaction, I could not have chosen otherwise. And the kiss was so much more passionate, with my arms draped around Joseph's strong neck. He kissed me back, our lips fused hard, our saliva mixing as our mouths opened ever so slightly.

Finally, I realized what I was doing and felt a bit odd. I broke the kiss and pushed back. Joseph had a sort of dazed smile on his face, as though he were more than satisfied with the reward he received for the magazine. To hide my embarrassment in my sudden loss of control, I picked the magazine back up.

"Where did you find it?" I asked.

"A customer asked me to throw it away after I checked him out, I just hung onto it instead," he explained. I held the slick paper up close to my face, enjoying the feel of its foreignness and weight in my hands.

"It is my favorite gift ever," I said to Joseph and he blushed.

"I'd get you anything to have you look at me like that," Joseph said slowly, with intense embarrassment. I blushed back but couldn't speak.

"Well," Joseph said finally after a long pause, "I guess we should go back in, Father will wonder what is keeping us." He said. And he left. When he was gone I carefully unzipped the back of my dress a bit, slid the magazine down against my back and then zipped myself back up. Then I rushed to the house, hoping that no one would notice my slight hunchback.

* * * * *

A few hours later I was in my room, a candle burning on my desk. I was sitting in my chair staring down at the magazine. I had already read the first article, something about Chinese labor conditions. There were so many uncertain words with uncertain meanings that I really had absolutely no idea what I was reading about. I didn't even really understand the purpose of the papers, I mean the only thing I'd read were religious documents. I didn't think there was such a things as "news." However, regardless of my lack of understanding, I was enthralled by the magazine. It had such lovely paper and wonderful pictures. There were men and women, people I'd never seen before. It was just a slight taste of what my brother had been experiencing all along and it was amazing. There were little cartoons and info-graphics and it was almost a sensory overload. Every couple of minutes I had to stop and take a breath to keep myself from keeling over.

I was proceeding slowly, trying to understand what the magazine was saying. Then I turned a page that would be very important for my life in the future. It was somewhere near the middle of the magazine and when I flipped to it I was looking at something that felt out of place. Everywhere else there had been lots of words and just a few pictures scattered around. But suddenly I was looking at a full-page picture with just a splash of words across it. The look of the magazine to that point had been very serious, but all of the sudden, it looked playful. I later figured out that it was an advertisement, but I was seriously stumped.

But I was less confused about the exact purpose of the full-paged picture than the content. The picture showed a man with long dark hair and smoldering looks. Most surprisingly, the man wasn't wearing a shirt! I'd never seen a man's chest before. I knew from the way my father' shirt and my brother's shirt draped over their frames that a man's chest was different than a woman's. But I'd still never seen it before. The man had bulging muscles; his stomach was covered in ridges. Even stranger than that, the man was not wear pants. He was just wearing a little pair of tight white short pants. And there, between his legs, was a large bulge. What was that?

I'd never really thought about what a man's body looked like, but this was completely different than anything my imagination would have conceived. But for some reason, I liked it. It made my heart flutter and my palms sweat. I felt that same bodily compulsion I felt when I kissed Joseph! I didn't know what to think of that. I wanted to move on from the picture, it made me feel so strange. But I couldn't.

I picked the magazine up and walked over to my bed slowly. I kept looking at the picture, letting my eyes roam over it. I couldn't figure out why I found it so alluring, beyond all of the other new sights and ideas I'd encountered in the magazine. I lay down on my back and held the magazine over my head. As I did so, I felt my nightgown ride up a little against my nipples. I suppressed a little squeak. That had felt so nice. Why? I looked down at my body. I was acutely aware of every nerve in my body. Everything felt electric.

I don't know what possessed me to take my nightgown off, but it was the only thing I could think of that would release some of the tension I was feeling. It was more instinct than anything else. I put the magazine down and slipped my nightgown up over my head. As usual, I wasn't wearing anything underneath.

I was only supposed to be naked when I was bathing or in the short time between getting out of my night clothes and into my day clothes. So I had little experience with my naked body. I looked down over it like it belonged to someone else. It felt alien. I looked at my small, pink nipples and they were sticking out hard from my body. I saw the way my chest tapered down to my waist and then flared out again to my hips. I looked at my flat tummy and thin legs. I looked at my private area and saw it glistening from moisture. I noticed, for the first time ever, a little pink nub at the top of my private area, sticking up. It was a tiny thing, I didn't know what it was.

I picked my magazine up again and looked at it. I tried to understand what was happening to me, to figure out what about the picture was affecting me and what it had to do with my brother. But the more I looked, the more I felt tense. I felt like my entire body was vibrating and I couldn't keep still. I tried to get comfortable, I moved the magazine a bit. As I did, I felt the corner of the magazine brush against my nipple.

"Oh god!" I said quietly, without realizing why. It was like a hot chill ran through my body. I know that is contradictory, but there is no other way to describe it. I looked down at my hard little nipple and wondered what had happened. I set the magazine down next to me on the bed. I moved my hand up towards my breast. I'd never much bothered with my breasts before, I didn't have any idea why they were there (I was too young when my brother was born to remember nursing). But now they seemed to have a purpose. I took my forefinger and gently flicked my nipple. That same hot chill ran through me again and I bit my lower lip to keep from making noise. If my parents heard they would come in and find out I was doing... something.

I took my thumb and forefinger and pinched my nipple. My head swam. All the things I had been feeling seemed to be getting more intense. I pinched again and I was certain. Whatever was happening to me was in some way connected to my nipples. And I liked it. I brought my other hand up and started to pinch my other nipple as well. I found that if I squeezed both of my breasts, not just the nipples, the feeling was even more intense. I writhed on the bed. I felt something building, but I didn't know what. It was maddening. It kept making me feel more and more anxious but at the same time I didn't want to stop. For a long while, I just played with my breasts, feeling every aspect of my touch. But the more I did, the less my body responded to the controls of my brain. My legs moved as though I had no control over them, moving side to side. By chance I happened to squeeze my legs together.

"Hmmph" I moaned around my bit lower lip. My thighs had brushed against the hard pink little nub between my legs. The feeling was a thousand times more intense than my nipples. The first instant I felt that feeling, I needed more of it. I squeezed my legs together again and didn't feel anything. I tried a third time and got nothing. I wondered if it was something that could only happen once or if I was not touching it correctly.

I moved my fingers from one hand away from my breast and slid it down across my stomach. Every spot that my hand touched felt more alive after it passed. I sucked in breath quickly. My hand moved down to the bottom of my stomach and against the slightly raised area right above my private area. Then, my finger brushed the hard little pink nub. I shuddered all over. My hand involuntarily squeezed on my breast, making the feeling more intense.

"What is going on?" I asked myself quietly. It didn't feel like I was existing in the real world. Everything felt cloudy and strange. And lovely. I slowly began to move my finger against (what I later learned was) my clit. My breathing was shallow and each pass of my finger pushed me farther and farther into the strange, sensuous cloud. All the while I was thinking. I was thinking about the man's body in the magazine, the way he was put together. I didn't know why. And I thought about my brother also, about kissing him, about the way his arms felt around me.

I guess in thinking about all of this, I'd lost tracking of what I was doing. I became aware that my finger had slipped off my clit and was now touching the slit below. My fingers felt hot and wet. I put them away brought them to my face. The liquid was clear and thick, stretching out between my outstretched fingers. I held it to my nose, smelling it. It was a musky aroma that seemed to fill the entire room, and it was lovely. I felt an intense curiosity about it. SO curious, I could not stop myself from what I did next, I plunged my fingers into my mouth, tasting the salty flavor of my vagina's juices. I felt my cheeks get hot as I savored the flavor, rolling the liquid around in my mouth. What was I doing?

I couldn't stop to think now; my body wouldn't let me stop. I moved my hand back down between my legs. My finger brushed my clit again. Now it was wet and slid across my clit more easily. My body shook and I moaned. I clasped my hand over my mouth to keep from moaning aloud, just keeping my one hand between my legs. My awkward fumblings were over. I knew, instinctively, what I needed to do. I move my finger up and down my clit, stroking it. I quickly fell into a slow, steady rhythm.

As my fingers moved over my clit, I felt like everything else in the world slipped away. There was just the building sensation inside of my body and one thought. Over and over in my mind I just kept thinking "Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!" With each stroke of my finger I thought of my brother, the person who was opening this strange new world up to me. The feeling inside of me became more and more intense. I had to bite my hand, hard, to keep from making noise.

Suddenly, all of the tension in my body reached an unbearable crescendo. I wanted so badly to stop, I couldn't stand the furious agony anymore. And then there was a glorious, almost excruciating release from the tension. My entire body shook all over and I bit down so hard onto my hand that I left marks. And then a wave of pleasure spread out in every-increasing waves from my clitoris. It rolled up my body and down my legs. It was a warm, vibrating feeling that erased anything approaching a thought in my mind and left me a puddle of loose muscles.

Finally, the feeling passed and I lay on my bed panting and confused. It had been the most pure sensation of pleasure I'd ever experienced. There was nothing even remotely close to it in all of my life. I knew that I should be concerned, maybe even scared. Anything that felt that lovely had to be sinful. And what did it have to do with the man in the magazine or with my brother? But I couldn't seriously think of any of those things. I was too...satisfied. All I could do was slide under my covers and fall asleep completely rested.

* * * * *

I awoke the next morning, still feeling limbered and contented. But I could think now, and I knew that something strange had happened the night before. I got out of bed and felt thankful that I'd woken up early enough to clean up after myself. I picked up the magazine and carefully slid it under the mattress and above the box spring. I also picked up my nightgown and put it away. I then got dressed and headed downstairs. The whole time I felt a strange mixture of emotions. I was ashamed of myself, first off. I didn't know why, but I was almost overwhelmed by a feeling that I'd let my family down. That I'd let God down. But I also felt curious. What was happening to me and why? And why did something I instinctively knew was wrong feel so right?

As I sat down at breakfast, I expected everyone to know that I'd done something. I was a little nervous at first, eating breakfast with the family and doing all of my normal chores. But everyone treated me normally; no one was the wiser that I'd done anything out of the ordinary. Whatever it was that I did. That made things even stranger. I'd always assumed my parents knew when I sinned (they usually did). More questions raised, I guess. And I didn't have anyone to ask about it. I didn't even know if I could talk to Joseph about it. It was too wrong and Joseph was even more sensitive to sin than I was.

But even though I wasn't going to tell him that I'd touched myself, that didn't stop me from thinking. When I saw him at the breakfast table I thought about the picture of the man in the magazine. I thought that his face was more...agreeable than the magazine man's face. Joseph's eyes were kinder and her chin was stronger. But. I wondered if Joseph's body looked like the man's. I wondered if Joseph had a bulge between his legs like the man did. And if he did, what was it? I was just so curious. I found myself trying to picture Joseph with his clothes off. I thought about him kissing me while wearing nothing but those tiny white shorts. And then I felt even more ashamed for some reason. I felt tension rising inside of me. I was almost thankful when breakfast was over.

Despite all of my efforts to forget everything, or at least pretend it hadn't happened, I couldn't focus on anything all day. I made mistakes in my sewing, for which Mother chastised me. And I dropped an egg in the barn, for which Father thrashed me some. Finally, as evening approached, I couldn't take it anymore. I wouldn't talk to Joseph about what I'd done the night before, but I would talk to him about my curiosity. I had talked through all of his confusion and experiences with him. It was his turn to talk to me. At least that is what I told myself. Part of me knew that, even before I summoned Joseph to meet me in the barn, that I was going to go farther than talking. I knew, even if I couldn't admit it to myself, that once you open Pandora's Box with respect to curiosity and sex, that you can't close it again. I didn't have words for these concepts, but I knew them anyway. My brother had brought the world into our home and the night before I had allowed that world into my body. I needed to share that experience with someone, to take the world into my soul. And so I summoned my brother.