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“Brother Rhyder,” Eli said. “What do you have to report for Temperance? What have you done to counteract the harmful effects of living in the city? What have you done to wash her filth away?”

“We read from the Words morning and night,” Rhyder said, and the excitement and passion throbbed in his voice.

That was sort of true. Rhyder recited some of the Words morning and night before he tore into me.

“Her sins,” Eli pressed. “What are hersins? What punishment are you meting out to Temperance this week?”

“None,” Rhyder said, his deep voice low and rumbly. “She has committed no sin this week.”

There was a brief silence and I felt danger rise on the back of my neck in inch after inch of tingly fear.

I concentrated on staring at my feet, but I could feel the eyes of the Congregation shift to me.

“No sin?” the Prophet interposed, and I fuckingfelthim dart a speaking glance at Eli. “Brother Rhyder, you are always so zealous to root out sin! All women need guidance with the hand, and whores especially.”

“She has done nothing meriting my hand,” Rhyder said after a moment. I felt him dart a glance over at me.

And I knew. His pride and love could not possibly be written any plainer or clearer on his face.

“Think harder,” the Prophet said. “Surely you can think of some necessary discipline.”

For a moment there was silence in the clearing and terror pulsed through me, a growing sense of community anger and all focused on me.

Just punish me, brother!

“All right,” Rhyder said. “Come here, Temperance.”

I wasn’t a fucking idiot. If I wanted to somehow survive, I would do exactly what Rhyder told me to in public.

He sat down in a chair and I walked over to him, my stomach suddenly fluttering with nerves.

“Over my knees,” he said, and I complied, stretching my body over his big thighs, my breasts squashed against the hard muscles in his legs.

“It is just a little reminder,” Rhyder said, and his voice was a caress.

Godsdamn, this wasnothow you were supposed to discipline women.

Congregants were not encouraged to be overly affectionate with their Helpmeets and certainly not their whores. They were taught from a very young age that women needed ceaseless vigilance to keep them on a righteous path.

But this was one lesson that had never taken with Rhyder.

In all other ways he was a model Congregant, an obedient cultist, a dedicated holy warrior who wouldn’t hesitate to slit the throat of any man his Prophet wanted dead.

But he loved his sister

Blindly, fervently, with a bonedeep unholy obsession rooted deep in his brain and soul.

It simply did not compute with him that I could ever be wicked.

I stretched across his massive thighs, clutching his legs so I wouldn’t roll off.

My dress was made of thin fabric, covered with the sweatshirt Rhyder insisted would keep me warm.

My brother carefully raised my skirts, his fingers only a raspy whisper across my skin. I could already feel his huge cock hardening, digging into my side and spreading across my bare belly.

Then he pulled my panties down, whisper-gentle again, folding them neatly against my knees.

Fuck