Khalid, having awoken from his short nap, rubs his eyes and sits down at the table across from Rosita, who is reading the Revelation.
"You didn't tell me this book also borrows from the Kama Sutra," she says.
"Ah, you got to the section on acceptable sexual positions? Considerably fewer than in the Kama Sutra."
"Only seven in fact," she says.
"Seven is the number of perfection in Greek mythology," Khalid says. "Also, God created the earth in seven days."
"Six days," Rosita corrects him.
"Ah. Yes."
"If a man wrote this," Rosita asks, "why didn't he demand that the women give their husbands seven blowjobs a week while they're pregnant instead of just one a week? I mean, wouldn't you have, if you were custom designing your own religion?"
"I'm not sure I would be that demanding a god," Khalid replies.
"What if a woman wrote this?"
"If a woman wrote it, why would she insist the wives administer any blowjobs at all?"
"Hey, some women really like giving blowjobs," Rosita insists.
Khalid's eyebrow goes up.
Rosita shakes her head.
"I don't think we were knocked out by a woman," he says.
"Oh really? You don't think I could knock you out?" Rosita asks.
"Well, maybe you could knock me out, but could you knock yourself out?"
"Fair enough," Rosita concedes. "Although she – or he – snuck up on us from behind while we were caught up in a net. It wouldn't have taken much. A good blow with a crowbar. And then, if we were drugged…"
"What's that?" He nods to the sheet of paper on the table.
Rosita pushes the questionnaire over to him. "The Prophet delivered this while you were asleep. We've got some explaining to do, apparently."
[*]
In their explorations of the maze of tunnels, Daryl and Carol end up climbing up a ladder that exits in a crawlspace inside the walls of the Temple. Artificial light seeps through vents high up in the walls. At first, they don't realize where they are, but then they come across a section where a square has been roughly cut out of the inner stone wall to reveal some kind of covering, and they can hear the voice of a woman saying, "Let's hurry, children, you're going to be late for class!" and the clattering of passing feet.
Carol touches the covering. It feel like canvas. She thinks maybe they're behind a section of an oil painting. That's when she sees the black tape on the back of the canvass. She peels it off to reveal two holes, which she peers through. An empty, marble-floor hallway rests before her, and a golden banister that probably leads to a stairwell. Carol steps back to let Daryl have a look, and then she pushes the tape down over the canvass again. She assumes that when she presses the tape back on, it makes the painting look filled-in again. The eye holes must be cut out of the darkest spot.
They continue on through the crawlspace until they hear no sound again, and Carol whispers, "They may not see the Prophet, but I think the Prophet sees them."
They come to another cut-out I the wall and another canvas painting with more tape. After Carol peels the tape back, they each put one eye to a hole. They look out onto a marbled area with a small, circular blue pool and four alabaster stairs leading down into it.
"That their bath?" Daryl asks in a whisper.
"I think it's a baptismal pool," Carol replies. "But maybe they do use it for bathing now. They probably have some kind of ritual bathing."
A jet of water sprays underneath the surface of the pool. "'S gurglin'!"
"They have electricity and running water," Carol whispers in awe. "Heat, too. Can you feel it?"
"Yeah." He steps back and unzips his leather jacket.
"This Temple must have been built to run off the grid somehow." Carol presses the tape back onto the painting and they continue through the walls until they find a third such cut out. It's like opening and Advent calendar, Carol thinks as she peels the tape back and puts her eyes to the peep holes.
Before her is a small waiting room with white chairs covered by lacy white cushions. She freezes and attempts to remain utterly silent because a man and a woman come in and sit down in two of the chairs not far from the painting.
The woman has an ankle-length floral dress on, while the man wears brown workpants held up by suspenders over a white shirt.
The woman turns her wrist and glances at a slender, silver watch. "They have it reserved for another ten minutes," she says. "But they should be out soon, and then it's our turn."
"You can't keep inviting me to the sowing room like this," the man says. "The other husbands will have cause for complaint."
"No they won't," she replies. "They get their minimum two times a week. So what if I invite you to the more often? I'm obeying the law."
"The letter of it, maybe," he says.
"Well, honey, I don't hear you complaining."
"Actually, you do," the man says. "I'm complaining right now. Because I'm worried they might think…you know."
"Well…" The woman laces a fingertip underneath one of his suspenders and sensually pulls it halfway down his shoulder before kissing him through his white shirt. "You won't be complaining in about ten minutes, I assure you." The man smiles, but frowns when she continues, teasingly, "…When you're plowing my field with your big, hard planter."
Carol steps back and slaps the palm of her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, but she can still hear the exchange.
"Stop!" the man hisses. "Don't make fun of the holy language. People will think you're a doubter!"
"We're alone here. It's just you and me. And, come on, admit it. The imagery is a little funny."
In the faint light drifting through the air vents, Carol can see Daryl flushing a pinkish red. But neither dares move. They barely breathe, and Carol keeps her hand over her own mouth.
The man must relax his fears, because he gets into the spirit of the teasing. His voice is playfully mocking when he says, "Are you going to show me your luscious hills, your peaks of plenty, and make your garden wet for me?"
"Why don't you water it yourself, handsome?" the woman teases back.
Daryl concentrates fiercely on his boots.
"I'm thinking…the fifth position," the man says.
"How about the third?" the woman counters.
"Why not both? We get the room for forty minutes."
The woman laughs. "I don't know that you recover that quickly."
The man's tone grows suddenly solemn and slightly bitter. "I hope you get pregnant soon so you can stop letting Elijah…" He makes a dissatisfied muttering sound.
"Oh, he's not so bad," the woman says. "And you won't be able to have sex with me either while I'm pregnant. But I promise I'll savor your fruit more than once a week."
Carol has to press her palm tighter over her mouth.
"You'll still have to savor his once a week," the man mutters.
"You're not supposed to be jealous of your wife's love," the woman tells him. "Be careful. You'll be mistaken for a doubter. You don't want to end up like Hannah. That poor girl. On her fourteen birthday, too. And she didn't even say anything that I know of!"
"Sometimes the Prophet sees things we don't," the man replies.
The woman sighs. "I hope she comes back to us, that the Prophet judges she's been re-enlightened. But I'm afraid she won't."
"Why not? Eve came back. And she's more fervent than any of us now. And Joseph came back."
"And then…" the woman's voice hollows out. "Did what he did to himself."
"That was an accident," the man insists. "He had too much of the holy wine. You know he always had a problem. That's why he was in the doubter's chair in the first place. He dishonored the law of the Prophet when it came to intoxicants. He must have relapsed. He toppled off that roof. He was drunk."
"There was no missing wine," she says. "And Esau never came back at all. Four years ago he was delivered to the Prophet for re-enlightenment. Such a young one, too. Only eight years old!"
"Because he was judged a pretender. The Prophet banished him to protect us."
"Where do you think the Prophet takes the doubters?" she asks. "To discern their hearts?"
"We shouldn't be talking about this," he insists. "It might lead us into doubt."
They fall silent. Carol and Daryl stay frozen in place, afraid if they move, they'll be heard, just as they can hear the couple on the other side of the painting. The man and the woman move onto other mundane topics. They talk about a daughter and how she's doing in her classes, about what will be for dinner, and about whether it might rain tomorrow. A door creaks open, and there's footsteps, and another couple exchange pleasantries with them before walking on.
After Carol and Daryl here the couple get up and the door shut, they wait another two minutes before daring to walk on.
When they're behind the safe cover of solid stone again, Daryl mutters, "Feel like a damn perv now."
"We got some good information, though," Carol says.
"Didn't get shit. Just learned they have weird sex practices. Hell's a sowing room? That where they all go to fuck?"
"Seems like."
"Think the Prophet peeps on 'em while they're knockin' boots? That how she gets 'er jollies?"
"A woman?"
"Well, she's a nutbar. What makes ya think she ain't a perv, too?"
"Fair enough," Carol agrees. "But I think we would have gotten to that room by now, if it was cut out." But so far, they've only passed solid wall. "And we learned more than that. We learned that the Prophet takes people from that Doubter chair and that they don't know where she takes them. We learned she banishes people if she thinks they don't believe. And we learned that not everyone's completely sold on the religion. That could come in handy, if it ever comes to war."
"Let's hope it don't."
The crawlspace grows more and more narrow until they can't possibly fit through it anymore, so they turn around and back track. They don't hear anyone when they pass the sitting room, but they stop again at the spot before the baptismal pool, and Carol peers out.
There's a man and a woman there now, talking. The woman has her back to Carol. "I'm worried about her, Ammon," she says. "I caught her cavorting with Gideon again. She was letting him touch her breasts."
Ammon leans back against the railing above the pool and crosses his arms over his chest. "It's her choice, Rebecca. The Revelation says the girl chooses her own first husband. Not the mother of the girl."
"Yes, but if she chooses Gideon, he has two male cousins. She'll have to marry the oldest three months after marrying him, and the next three months after that. And they're thirty and thirty-two! Much too old for her. She may think she fancies that young man – but she's not going to fancy two grown-men who have been celibate for five years now. Aren't you worried about that?"
"The law does not permit abuse. They'll be gentle with her."
Rebecca sighs and shakes her head. "I wish she'd choose Malachi instead. He only has one male relative, and that boy is only ten. If she married him, she'd just have to have one husband for the next six years."
"With four husbands," Ammon replies, "she'll have more children. She'll be a Grand Lifegiver. She'll reach a higher spiritual plane. Don't you want that for her? Or have you become a doubter?"
"No! No!" Rebecca swears. "I haven't become a doubter. Of course I want that for her."
"Good. Because the Prophet is preaching again tomorrow through the radio, and I'd hate to have to report you as a doubter."
"I'm not," she says shakily. "I'm not a doubter! I just want what's best for our daughter."
"Like you wanted what was best for your son Esau? Maybe you planted those doubts in his mind."
"No, I didn't! He was a just a little boy when he said those things. He was only eight. He wasn't thinking!"
"He was a pretender," Ammon says. "That's what the Prophet judged. That's why he never came back. I hope you're not a pretender, too." The man paces away, his footsteps echoing on the marble hall.
The woman grips the rail and stares into the pool of bright blue water below.
Carol draws back, re-tapes the hole, and they move on. When they're safe behind the soundproof walls again, she asks, "If the Prophet talks to them through the radio, how can they not know she's a woman?"
"Dunno."
"Are you sure you read those tracks right?"
"Hell, maybe she use a voice distorter. But them tracks – they either belong to a woman, or a damn small man. Shoe size weren't more than a seven and a half. 'N she was a diagonal walker. When men walk like that…just looks diff'rn."
"How would a woman have known about the tunnels under the Temple? There were no women in Mormon leadership, were there?"
"Dunno," Daryl mutters. "But I know 's gettin' near sunset. Let's get in position under the altar. Let's jump this bitch when she comes for her offerin'."
