The Ghostwriter's Words

Claire: Who is this amazing woman?

Who is this stunning, mysterious, amazing woman who'd stumbled into her life, literally? Her name is Sara, or so she says, but Claire wasn't sure whether to believe even that to be true. There were secrets. Claire sensed there was much to Sara she still hadn't uncovered. But what was she hiding?

Beginning that wild weekend they met, Sara insisted she was of age and older than she appeared. Claire had felt the need to ask. Waking to see Sara's face in the morning light, she'd gasped, thinking for an instant that she clutched the naked body of a prepubescent teenage girl against her chest, feeling a rush of anxiety and confusion trying to decipher whether memories of wild entangled orgasmic passion had been a dream or a reality. But not prepubescent, clearly, since the magnificent breasts that pushed against her own with either's intake of breath could not possibly be those of a child. Still, her peacefully sleeping angelic face appeared so young. Too young!! Although they'd already committed far more serious crimes together, for her to be concerned about the consequences of Sara being underage.

Technically, if caught, their first kiss would have been punishable by death or disfigurement since it clearly had not been a sisterly embrace. Although, Claire had never heard of women executed or disfigured by the authorities for being caught with another woman. Not within her lifetime. Those were ancient laws, never officially revoked, even though it had been many years since they began the effort to reshape themselves into an evolving modern country, encouraging their people to cease behaving in such barbaric ways. So, there were still public hangings, on occasion, even beheadings, depending on the offense and how traditional the customs remained in various remote areas of the country, but she believed those were reserved exclusively for heinous crimes, such as murder or rape, or the sexual abuse of children. So, maybe her concern over the angelic face next to her in bed that morning wasn't so misplaced.

Claire's brother had told her of women recently flogged for sexual improprieties, but those occurred in remote villages. Her brother had also never heard of women punished so severely for being with another woman. He'd kept her informed of such events because he'd known her preferences since they'd secretly traded toys as children. And she was equally aware that he had his secrets to guard.

There had been stories of two women who were supposedly stoned to death not that long ago, one for adultery and the other for prostitution, again, in remote areas. Both women - if the stories were true - must have pissed off some village elder or local authority. Even in the most backward areas, in recent years, adulterers had been flogged at worse. More often, they were only publicly humiliated, dragged before the people of their village, with their heads and faces uncovered, to hear the specifics of their offenses read aloud. Humiliation, at its very worst, included branding, disfigurement, or the much milder and more common punishments, such as having their hair sheared off, their heads shaved, and forbidden from covering their faces or shaven heads in public for a year.

Her brother told her that he'd learned that the prostitute was tolerated for years. Again, assuming the stories were even true. Everyone in her village and those nearby knew and supposedly ignored her activities. She satisfied the needs of men no other women would want and thereby, by their thinking, kept those men from raping honorable women instead. Or so the honorable village men who used her services claimed to justify their tolerance of the woman rumored to be a prostitute to their honorable wives.

The woman had no other way to feed her children, the first of which came after being raped by one of the honorable men in her village when she was barely a teenager. Then, because of her shame, no other honorable man in the village would marry her. The children who followed were all fathered by others of the honorable men in the village who were her clients or just raped her rather than pay. Who would listen to her complaints? But, by the time her youngest child was grown, her beauty had long since faded, and since not even the undesirable men were interested enough in her aging body and face to pay, she'd taken to begging on the streets to feed herself. Her children had all moved away rather than living with their mother's shame. So, she was alone.