Delilah

Chapter 11

As the door of the prison clanged shut behind us, I commanded Jabin to stay at the prison entrance and told the guard to take me to Samson's cell and leave me there alone until I called for someone to come and let me out. I assured him that I had no fear of the large man in the cell. The guard obviously had already been advised by the high priest to allow me some privacy as I faced Samson. He did not demure, but simply took me to a door.

"We cleaned him up and put him in a special room for your visit," the guard said. Spitting in the dust, he continued, "You would not have been able to abide the stench had we taken you to the cell where the only toilet is a corner of the room. If the smell of excrement had not overpowered you, his body odor would have. Even clean and in a holding cell, he is not a pretty sight."

I opened the door and stepped inside, closing the portal behind me and leaning against the rough wood. I found myself in dark cell lighted only by a small lamp on a ledge over the door. I made out a man sitting on the sleeping bench across from me. He was turned away from the door, as though rejecting anything or anyone that might come into the room. While he had the height of the Samson I knew, the pleasing bulk was gone. Muscle still rippled when he moved, but the magnificent physique was altered. He was more gaunt. His skin lacked the luster I remembered. But what transformed him from an imposing physical specimen into a mere man was his stance. Gone was the brash posture that proclaimed, "Look at me. I am invincible." Instead, his body was slumped, his pose one of melancholy, lacking confidence.   

Unbelievably his body had been shaved, as though his captors feared his hairiness. I had helped cut the beautiful locks that adorned his majestic head, after he told me his strength came from the unshorn tresses that were a part of his Nazarene vow. I guess to ensure that his strength would remain extinct, the Philistine guards had shaved his chest, legs, arms, and face. Later when I was closer, I would realize that the hair had started to grow back. His body was covered with the same kind of stubble a man's face gets when he goes without shaving for a few days. 

As I stood, overcome by sorrow, he slowly turned toward me, raising his head and sniffing the air like an animal checking the wind before approaching the watering hole. In horror I saw the once handsome face, marred almost beyond recognition. The hypnotic eyes were no more. Scabbed holes were positioned on either side of his hooked nose. As I remembered the eyes that reminded me of dark lagoons where I had lost my soul on our first encounter, tears ran unheeded down my cheeks and dripped onto the soft lace of my useless veil. When a soft moan escaped my treasonous lips, the specter on the bench said, "Delilah? It is you, is it not? I can smell your perfume and I recognize that soft sigh. Have you come to gloat and further trample my broken spirit?"

Advancing into the room, I replied in a hoarse whisper, "Oh, Samson, what have I done? I sold my soul and yours – for a coffer of silver."

Openly weeping, I sat on the bench beside Samson. With a questing hand, he reached out and felt the filmy gauze of my veil. With a shaking appendage, he removed the bit of cloth and taking his thumb, he gently caught a tear as it fell from my eye. As he put his thumb in his mouth and slowly sucked the salt from the tip, memory ignited and I remembered that first tear that he caught so long ago. I sat as though in a trance until I felt Samson press his thumb to my lips, just as he had done that first morning in my home.  I heard him say in a voice burdened with sadness, "We are a strange pair, are we not? You sold our souls for silver, but only after I sold mine for carnal love. I was trying to teach you about genuine love when I did not even understand true love myself."

Sliding my arms out of my cloak, I leaned into Samson making certain my thinly clad breast brushed against his bare arm. Sensuously I purred into his ear, "You are wrong, Samson. You understood love better than any man I have ever known. Your touch awakened me in a way no other man had."