LIES OF HOPE

She had tears in her eyes when she knelt before him and took him in her mouth. Karl knew her religion was against it, yet, he had let her go through with it. She used her lips just like he had told her to, but she did it with fear written on her face. No matter. Before the night was over, those tears would no longer linger when he showed her what she and her tribe had been missing.

Karl and his wife, Lexi, had been married for two months, and all that time, he had not had sex with her because of her view about sex.

Lexi was taught to believe that women were mares, meant to be mounted and ridden. "A horse," Lexi had said, "should feel the ache and pain of its riding, and the rider is to feel the pleasure."

"I guess you've never ridden a horse," Karl had said. "People normally get sores from riding horses, and since women aren't horses, they shouldn't be ridden like horses. They are beings of pleasure, meant to feel ecstasy, the shattering euphoria of climax, the point all should reach. They should be treated like glass, gentle to hold and feel, and consumed with pleasure like fire."

They had argued again and again about it, but Karl had stood by one argument. "If I can't give you multiple climaxes, then, I won't make love to you."

Karl had found that the sight of her naked always turned him on, stirring up an urge he usually found hard to extinguish. Save for the fact that Lexi was always shy to be naked around him, she also thought it unholy and totally avoided it.

Karl, half consumed with passion, looked down to see rivulets of tears run down Lexi's face. Then, he felt her pain and his passion died.

"Stop," Karl said. "Stop. I can't make love to you like this." He separated himself from her and used a sheet to cover her.

Lexi took to her feet sniffing. And with her face to the ground, she asked, "What did I do wrong?"

"What did you do wrong?" Karl asked, unbelieving that she had asked such. "You were crying like I was about to rape you. Why was that?"

"Rape would have been better," she said. "My mother said it's a man's way over a lady during times of war."

Karl laughed a little. "War? Rape? You think rape is better than this?"

Lexi nodded, still not looking at him with her face to the ground. She looked like a slave, and he hadn't married a slave.

"Look at me," Karl said gently. He walked up to her and held both of her shoulders and she flinched. "Look at me."

Lexi raised her eyes to look at his briefly, then she settled it just beneath his, enough for him to see the violet in her eyes.

"What do you fear?" Karl asked.

"I've told you before?" she said. "It's against my religion. If caught, I'll be killed."

"And what would happen to me?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. They would let you go. They would blame it on the woman. Eve was the cause of the fall of creation. The woman is dangerous. Give her little power and she would lust after more. She is not to be trusted."

Karl nodded. "Okay. Do you know when a man marries a woman, they literally become one?"