Sin No More

Rough hands, holy hands grabbed her from behind, pulling her rudely from the bed.

“Caught you red-handed, you little tramp!” hissed a voice. “For this you will surely die.”

She tried to cover herself, but they had firm hold of her arms.

“Here,” someone said as a shirt hit her in the face. “Use this.” They let go of her long enough for her to pull the shirt on and get one button fastened. Then they grabbed her and pulled her away. Through her tears she looked back at the bed, but the man she had been with was no longer there.

Out of the house and into the noisy street they pulled her. A crowd had gathered as word of the raid spread.

“Home wrecker!”

“Floozy!” And worse names were hurtled at her, slammed into and bruised her. They reconfirmed all that she knew about herself, all that her parents had spat at her. Still, she burned with shame. Head down, tears sliding down her nose and dropping into the street, she had to almost run to keep up with her frenzied captors.

Their hands were not gentle. In her experience they never were. She knew hands to be demanding, poking, prodding, taking, and greedy. Her captor buried his fingers deep into her shoulders until sparks of light flashed before her eyes. She wasn’t sure what hurt more: the shame of being caught, the names which battered her, the memories that flooded into her mind, or the man’s hands. It all hurt. Death was what they promised. Death is what she wanted.

Into the town hall they dragged her, pushed her into the middle and threw her on the floor. Seated all around the room on raised chairs of importance sat the mayor and his council and all the town’s clergy. They watched in silent disgust as she sat huddled on the floor, trying to cover herself with a shirt, head in her hands.

“We caught her in the very act of adultery,” the leading captor crowed. “She deserves death.”

Voices from the gallery confirmed that the crowd had followed. Still the names came hurdling down upon her. “Harlot.” “No good hussy.” With each name the woman flinched as if struck by a stone full on.

The woman, on her knees, bent forward until her forehead touched the ground. She dare not look up. She felt unworthy. Tears puddled about her knees. She listened as the official ones, the holy ones conversed with each other, weighed the evidence, debated the finer points of the Law. She listened as her captors shuffled from one foot to the next, impatient at the slow pace of justice, waiting for their chance to pounce. She listened as the crowd continued to find newer and viler descriptive names for her.

Her mind drifted back to when she was a young girl and her dad paid her his first nightly visit. The visits became regular, always “Our little secret,” and they wounded her in body and spirit. Then daddy passed her off to her uncles, then her older brothers. She hated herself. She felt dirty, worthless and ashamed. She remembered trying to drown those terrible memories, the terrible names, the terrible accusations by consuming copious amounts of alcohol. At first, mind spinning, senses dulled, she felt good. But she always sobered up and the old feelings, names, and accusations washed up on the shore of sobriety. Drugs were readily available from passing traders, and she eagerly latched on to those. But as with the alcohol, she always came crashing down, and the latter state was worse than the first. Besides they were costly. She found that if she sold herself, let the men do as her daddy did, as her uncles did, as her older brothers did, she could make enough money to get her fix. Many of the men who used her now sat around the room on raised chairs of importance. Official men. Holy men.

Then she was aware of a pair of feet approaching her. She held her breath; the time of death was approaching. The feet stopped very near, so near she could almost smell the leather. Knee joints cracked as the person knelt. A hand touched her shoulder where the bruises left by her captor throbbed. It was a gentle hand. A soft touch. It never hurt her. It didn’t poke, demand, take. Rather it soothed.

“She deserves to die, you know,” she heard a voice say from one of the raised seats. Still the person before her didn’t speak. “She is a worthless tramp whose existence in our community cannot be tolerated. The Law says she must die.” The voice was emphatic now, as if trying to convince the speaker of his justice more than the man before the woman.

The man reached down and drew his fingers through the puddle of the woman’s tears. He spoke. “That is undoubtedly correct,” he said. Then he withdrew his hand, and the woman heard a rustling of clothes, then a gasp from the crowd of spectators.

“He has a gun!” someone shouted.

The woman heard the cylinder pop open, and listened as the man slid bullets into the gun’s six chambers. Then, snap!, the cylinder was closed, and the hammer cocked.

“You are undoubtedly correct in your sentence,” the man said again. “The Law provides for the execution of an adulterous woman. So,” he continued as he stood up, “the one who has never sinned shall have the honour.” The woman peeked up through her hands and saw the man standing, cocked gun in his outstretched hand, offering the means of her execution to any who would take it.

But none did. There was a stunned silence in the room. Then, one by one, the men on the raised seats of importance stood and left the room. The crowd in the gallery slowly filed out, their heads down. Finally, her captors turned and shuffled away.

“I guess that leaves just you and me,” the man said to the woman. He stepped toward her and once more touched her, this time on her head. “Look at me.”

She looked up into his eyes. It was as if a mighty vortex leaped from his eyes to her soul. All her memories, her whole life, sordid and dirty though it was, swirled before her then was caught up in the vortex and carried away into his eyes. Her eyes were wide as she watched that black cloud of her life leap from her soul to his eyes. She thought she saw him wince as it hit his eye, then disappear behind the cover of his deep brown eye curtains. The black of her life was gone. In its place she felt a love so deep that her heart ached with unadulterated joy.

“Arise, woman,” he commanded. “I guess your accusers are gone. I don’t condemn you.” Then taking her hand, he said, “Come. Let’s go—and sin no more.”