SIN and HONEY: Seven Years of Longing

Chapter 6: Leah

        “Please, Levi—”

        But Levi guided her lips back up to meet his. The pain of the bark digging into her back was quickly overridden by the soft caresses of his hand moving up her thigh, toward the wetness between her legs, and the source of her desperation.

            “Don’t stop,”she begged. He silenced her with a kiss, biting her bottom lip hard and causing her breath to quicken.

            “I’ve marked you now,”he said, smiling at her.

            He touched her then, and her eyes could no longer stay open. Her hips moved, seeking more of the torturous feeling. Everything—her pulsing lip, bruised from his possession; the scents of wild rosemary and sage crushed underfoot—made her delirious. Leah thought he would stop and take her as men did their wives, but Levi seemed content with kissing her, touching her, listening to her senseless mutterings of pleasure. She stood on her toes and moaned, her legs shaking, and soon she knew she would be unable to stand; the pressure building until finally, blessedly—

            “Leah,”he said, her name never sounding so beautiful than when uttered by Levi’s lips. She throbbed, hurtling over the crest of her desire. It was like nothing she could describe, because she had never seen the ocean, but when she dreamed about riding the waves, this was how it felt: floating higher and higher, then falling down, down, down.

            Levi held her as her breath steadied, and she made her return to the world they were so desperate to escape. He gazed upon her and Leah blushed, covering herself with her hands. She had yearned to be touched like that for so long, but now that it had happened, she hoped he didn’t see her any differently.

        “You’re beautiful,”he whispered, kissing her. He reached for her robe and helped draw it back over her body. “But I would hate to be the man who came upon us with you uncovered like that—he would be dead before he understood what exactly he saw.”

        She smiled too, for the first time in what felt like forever. “If only my father saw your love for me,”she said, resting a hand atop his chest, now glistening with sweat. If only Laban understood love at all, was really what she meant.

        Levi hesitantly spoke. “We could tell him. We could try—”

        “You know we can’t. He would …”Leah grew nauseous at the thought. She knew what happened to girls who fell in love without their father’s permission.

        The ones with kinder parents were exiled, sent off penniless into the world never to be reunited with their families. Some girls had wanted to die rather than face the shame of it, like the one who gashed her wrists with the tip of a bronze blade before wading into the river. And another, years before Leah was born, had been pelted to death with stones by her father and brothers.

        Rachel knew these stories too, but there was so much more she didn’t know, since Leah had kept it from her. Now she wouldn’t have time to explain.

             “My father only cares about riches, religion, and pride,”she said. “You have no riches, and you are neither of our religion nor of our family. His pride will never let him accept us, Levi. Never.”

The muscles in Levi’s neck pulled taught. “He will not harm you, Leah. I won’t let that happen.”

            She kissed him. It was a sweet thing to say, but Leah was not Rachel. She was not a dreamer; she had never been allowed to be. Rachel thought Leah mourned their mother, but really she grieved for what Ummī’s life could have been had she not married their father and stuck herself in this remote, secluded part of the world. Leah knew marriage was a ploy by men looking to trap women in their nets, deprive them of their desires, and turn them into servants. It was a world that favored the beautiful, like Rachel, and cast aside others—like Leah—with thoughts and dreams and minds of their own.

        Only when she met Levi five years ago did she realize her reluctance to marry was not because she wouldn’t be a suitable wife, but because before him, she’d never thought of what kind of wife she’d want to be. She now understood there was more than one kind: the kind her mother had been. Obedient and unquestioning, even in the face of shattered faith. Leah wanted to be a wife who laughed, who played games and sang songs while she worked—even though Laban sometimes forbade his daughters to sing with the other women—and certainly one who could ask questions.

        She asked Levi more questions than she knew her mind could contain, about the world beyond the camp and Haran, even beyond Canaan, the place of Jacob’s birth. Levi had traveled it all, it seemed to her, and the way he described it was so complex that he drew her a map on the ground with a pointed stick. She hadn’t even known what a map was.

        They had promised each other that one day they would leave this place and see the world—but that dream slowly faded as Rachel’s wedding grew closer. They would make plans and save the few shekels Levi managed to keep after Laban took the proceeds from his honey, but then Leah would grow scared at the last moment. She would run to Levi crying, saying she couldn’t leave Rachel yet. She had to protect her until she became Jacob’s wife—and hopefully, in the eyes of Laban, Jacob’s property. Only then would she have fulfilled her promise to their mother. Then she could leave in peace.

        But with each day that passed, preventing them from being together, Leah had grown fearful. What if she never left? She would be stuck, just like their mother was. She didn’t want to go back to the days of being plain, unmarried Leah, merely Rachel’s sister and nothing more. Back then, she hovered like a stain on Rachel’s beauty, and never saw any of her own.

Separating their lips before she once again lost herself, Leah spoke. “Forget about the honey. We will take what we can and find another way to support ourselves. I can sell my mother’s jewelry, silver bracelets and earrings—”

        “Leah?”

        Rachel. Leah would know that voice anywhere. She pushed Levi back and turned, seeing her sister standing just beyond the collection of acacia trees. 

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Leah's been caught! What will Rachel do, now that she knows her sister has been keeping a secret? Tune in Friday to find out!