The Book of Rivka

And lo, the sun did beat upon the high rocks of Horeb, and the cave did stink of goat meat and the sweat of forty unwashed bodies.

And Ezekiel, son of nobody important, did rise yet again and say:

"Thus saith the Lord God of Hosts: The hearts of men are as cracked cisterns that hold no water, and thy thirst shall not be quenched but by obedience! Turn ye from thy lusts!"

Someone threw a half-eaten fig at him. Didn't shut him up.

"Ezekiel, my guy," snapped Doron from the back, wiping his forehead with a frayed tunic, "we're just trying to eat. Shut the hell up before I use this bone to part your Red Sea."

But Ezekiel lifted his hands and cried aloud,

"I am as a trumpet in the wilderness! I shall not be silenced by the carnal rabble!"

"You will if Rivka sits on your face," muttered Shoshanna, low and sharp, her voice like gravel smoothed with honey.

Rivka shot her a look. Not a subtle one. Her curls clung to her temples with sweat, her robe loose at the shoulders, her thick arms folded under those absurd tits like they were blessed burdens. She bit a date slowly. Watched Shoshanna chew hers. It was obscene.

And Shoshanna, lean and long of limb, daughter of Mara, did turn her gaze upon Rivka, and there was heat in her eyes. Not the fire of Sinai, but the slow-smoldering kind that turns stone to glass.

No one said it out loud. Not yet. But when Rivka's hand brushed Shoshanna's knee under the shawl they shared, it stayed a little too long. And when Shoshanna leaned close to whisper, the entire right side of Rivka's chest pressed up against her shoulder, and Rivka didn't fucking move.

Ezekiel's voice thundered again.

"Woe to the daughters of Zion who walk haughtily, with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go--"

"Oh my God, Ezekiel," groaned Natan. "We get it. You're horny and mad about it."

And thus the murmuring in the cave became a grumble, and the Lord did not strike Ezekiel down, though many wished He would.

Rivka leaned in, her breath thick with garlic and maybe something sweeter, something from a skin jar passed between women. "If he says 'loins' one more time," she whispered, "I'm gonna lose my shit."

"I want to hear him say 'loins'," Shoshanna grinned, eyes flicking down then up again. "Just not his loins."

Rivka smirked. Then her face got real serious, real fast. "Tonight?" she asked, like she didn't mean to ask.

Shoshanna didn't say anything. But the answer was already in her eyes.

And in that hour, though the prophet raved and the bread was flat and the air foul with bodies, two women sat close enough to feel each other's heartbeats, waiting not for manna, but for the hush of night, and the moment the fire died.

"And the Lord shall bring them out of the wilderness," Ezekiel proclaimed,

"but first, yea, they shall be tried by the heat of temptation and the touch of forbidden things--"

"Yeah," Rivka said, rising. "We're gonna go be tried now. C'mon, Shosh."

And they vanished into the shadows of the deeper cave, where even prophets didn't follow.

And lo, beneath the sheltering dark of the cave's deeper mouth, where the cool stone held the memory of night and the drip of water fell like whispered secrets, Rivka turned to Shoshanna and asked what any brave woman must ask when her hands have already begun to tremble.

"Is this just--" Rivka started, then cut herself off. She was strong in the daylight, sharp-tongued and heavier than most, but here in the hush, her voice was a thing unbraided. "Am I just gonna finger you in the dark and pretend we never touched?"

Shoshanna blinked, then laughed, short and real.

"That's the plan?" she asked, not teasing. Just curious.

Rivka sighed. "No. I mean. That's not what I want. But I've seen how it goes. You get someone off, they leave before the sun rises. They marry a man, have babies, stop looking at you like they ever meant it."

Shoshanna's hand reached out, steady as a priest's. Touched Rivka's wrist like it was part of a ritual.

"You think I'd ghost you?" she asked.

"I don't know," Rivka said, voice cracking like a branch under weight. "I don't know what this is. I don't know if it's holy or just stupid. I don't know if this is... the Book of Sappho."

"Who?"

"I don't know," Rivka muttered, embarrassed. "Some Greek bitch with a lyre and a lot of feelings."

Shoshanna tilted her head. "Sounds hot."

Rivka smiled, a real one this time. "She was. Probably."

And Shoshanna, nearly flat but full of fury, full of ache, leaned in and kissed her. Not as the pagans do, nor as the priests preach, but like a girl who has wanted for too long and didn't want to want alone anymore.

The kiss was not perfect. It bumped teeth and breathed too hard and tasted like lentils and nerves.

But it was true.

And Rivka, with her mouth still warm, said, "If I touch you, I want it to mean something."

Shoshanna took her hand, placed it on her own stomach, just beneath the drawstring of her robe. "Then mean it," she said.

And lo, in the hush behind the prophet's noise, two women wrote a verse that would never be read aloud in the synagogue, but might just echo forever in the aching hollows of every heart that ever hoped to be known.

And the Lord did not speak. Not here. Not now. The prophet's mouth still flapped somewhere near the fire, but in the back of the cave, where the stone breathed cold and the torchlight died before it reached, the only scripture was skin.

It was so dark Rivka could barely see. Only Shoshanna's shape beside her, barely outlined, the heat of her, the breath. She moved slow--not hesitant, not unsure, just... deliberate. Like she was trying to read her way across a text no rabbi had ever dared unroll.

Her fingers found Shoshanna's hair first. Touched it like it might vanish. Loose strands, a little tangled, a little damp, curling near her ear. She brushed them back. Tucked them behind. Let her knuckles trail down the line of her jaw.

Shoshanna shivered--not from cold. "You're being so careful," she whispered.

"You want rough?" Rivka breathed, amused.

"I want real."

And so Rivka leaned in, not with her mouth, not at first--but with her cheek. Let it rest against Shoshanna's temple. Their sweat mingled. Their hair tangled. Shoshanna shifted and her thigh brushed Rivka's. The soft fabric between them didn't hide much.

Her hand slid lower. Neck. Shoulder. Elbow. Forearm. She found Shoshanna's hand and held it. Then let it go. Then brushed higher again. Up. Up. Until she found the soft forest beneath her arm.

And there, Rivka paused.

Not to marvel. But to worship.

She pressed her face into Shoshanna's armpit and kissed it--slow, open-mouthed, like it was the holiest spot she'd ever known. The smell was real and warm, human and good, and when Shoshanna gasped--truly gasped--Rivka kissed her again. Tongue, now. Just a little.

"You're gonna kill me," Shoshanna whispered, and Rivka could feel her smile against her skin.

"No," Rivka said softly. "I'm just gonna find out what kind of girl you are."

Fingers moved, now. Slower still. Not between thighs yet, not yet. She grazed Shoshanna's ribs with the back of her hand. Let her thumb circle the side of her breast. The tip of one nipple brushed her knuckle and made Shoshanna jerk, just a little.

"You're so sensitive," Rivka murmured.

"So are you," came the answer, breathless, cocky, tender.

And in that hush, where no one saw and no one needed to, Rivka mapped the wilderness of Shoshanna's body not with conquest, but with care. She took her time. Let the dark be a veil, not a barrier. Let the touches speak what words had never dared.

Somewhere, far away, Ezekiel declaimed about sin. About fire. About brimstone and judgment.

But here? In the shadow sanctuary of their own making?

Rivka only said, low against the damp heat of Shoshanna's skin: "Let there be love."

And there was.

And lo, the prophet's mouth did not cease.

Though sweat ran down every back, and goat bones dried in the sand, and the figs were long since gone, Ezekiel stood among them like a cedar struck by lightning and screamed his visions into the steam-thick air.

"And behold! I saw a wheel within a wheel, and each wheel was full of eyes, and the fire spun around them like fury chained to purpose!"

"You saw what?" Natan asked, frowning around a mouthful of lentils.

"The likeness of a throne, sapphire in hue, above the firmament that was over their heads! A man upon it, gleaming like molten brass and lightning--"

"That's not food, Zeke. That's a stroke. You're having a stroke, my dude."

"No!" Ezekiel cried, spinning around like the wheels he kept talking about. "The spirit lifted me up by the hair of my head and carried me to the temple, and I saw the abominations!"

"Okay, but did the spirit say anything about shutting the fuck up so people could digest their chickpeas?"

"The cherubim had four faces, and each face--"

"--was begging you to shut up," Natan snapped, loud enough that a few of the younger ones snorted laughter.

And still the madman raved. Sweat poured from his temples like oil from cracked jars. He threw his arms toward the mouth of the cave like he could summon angels from the dust.

"Ezekiel," said Devorah, deadpan, eyes half-lidded with heat exhaustion. "This is why no one invites you to sit near the bread."

"But I saw visions of God!"

"God told me to throw this rock at your foot if you said 'cherubim' one more time."

"You jest--"

Thwack.

"Ow!"

Natan sighed, chewing slowly. "Just eat, Zeke. Let your wheels spin internally for five fucking minutes."

Ezekiel sat down in a huff, clutching his foot and muttering about wheels, spirits, and a river made entirely of blood.

Behind them, deeper in the dark, a different kind of fire was catching.

But no one was paying attention to that just yet.

And in the hollow stillness where prophecy could not reach, where the firelight did not flicker and Ezekiel's mad verses fell muffled against the stone, Rivka spoke her truth--not with verse or parable, but with the blunt wonder of a woman trying her best to name something beautiful.

She had Shoshanna half-undressed now, her robe shrugged down to the waist, her chest bare in the cool air. Rivka knelt beside her, both hands reverent on either side of those delicate, firm little breasts, thumbs circling slowly, as if she could warm them by devotion alone.

"My tits are like... big gourds," Rivka said, quietly awestruck. "Like the kind you gotta carry with both arms. The kind that don't fit in the basket so you just kinda walk around hugging them."

Shoshanna blinked. "Okay..."

Rivka looked up, so sincere it hurt. "Yours are like... really small gourds. But like. Like the perfect kind. The kind you put on the altar. Little and... perky. Round. Symmetrical. Holy gourds."

Shoshanna snorted. "You are not a poet."

"I'm not a poet." Rivka leaned in and kissed her sternum, then lower, between them, then to the left. "But I know a holy offering when I see one."

"You're ridiculous," Shoshanna whispered, gasping when Rivka's mouth closed gently around one nipple.

"And you're gorgeous," Rivka murmured against her, "and if you want me to write a psalm about your tits, I'll try. But it's gonna suck. There will be a lot of gourd imagery."

"Please don't," Shoshanna said, her voice breaking with laughter and want. "Just keep doing what you're doing."

And Rivka, woman of sweat and sass and insatiable mouth, did worship at the altar of Shoshanna's tiny, perfect breasts with more conviction than any prophet had ever managed.

Not for salvation. But for the joy of revelation.

And the breath between them deepened, slowed, turned syrupy with heat and ache. The air down there felt older, sacred, held tight in the hush of stone and skin. Shoshanna's legs eased apart--not rushed, not coy--just inevitable. A door opening to a home already built.

Rivka shifted lower, her hands tracing the outer lines of Shoshanna's thighs, where the skin grew soft and the muscle waited, tense. Her fingers combed lightly through the thick tangle of hair between them--untrimmed, unapologetic, and dark as nightfall in Canaan.

And Rivka stopped. Just for a second. Took it in.

"God damn," she breathed. Then corrected herself. "I mean. God... bless?"

Shoshanna laughed, sharp and breathless. "Smooth."

Rivka's voice was husky with awe. "You're just... you're like--like a wild field. In bloom. After rain."

Shoshanna raised an eyebrow in the dark. "A field?"

"I mean--fuck. Not like crops, not like I'm gonna harvest you--"

"Good, because that's horrifying."

"I just mean..." Rivka ran her hands slowly up Shoshanna's hips, bent close, pressed her lips into the mound without hurry. "It's real. It's you. I want my face buried here until I forget what day it is."

"Better," Shoshanna murmured, fingers threading through Rivka's curls.

"Not a poet," Rivka confessed again, pressing a kiss against one thigh, then the other, then into the thick, heady center of her. "But I'm pretty good with my tongue."

And lo, beneath the veil of dark, Rivka worshiped not in verse, but in motion. Not in song, but in softness. Her lips wrote psalms her mouth could never speak, and Shoshanna's hands--fisting, clutching, trembling--became the only translation necessary.

Outside, Ezekiel was still talking about wheels full of eyes.

But in here?

Only one was seeing God tonight.

And yea, when the time came, it came not with trumpets nor with a shout, but with silence--deep, shaking silence, held behind the trembling palm of a woman trying not to wake the whole goddamn camp.

Shoshanna's hand clamped over her own mouth, her eyes wide open in the dark, as if the feeling had caught her off guard. As if Rivka had cracked something in her, something older than touch, older than want. Her other hand was tangled in Rivka's hair, pulling--not hard, but helpless, like she needed something to hold on to or else be lost entirely.

Rivka didn't stop. She didn't even slow down. She moved her tongue like she'd been born to this, like she'd waited her whole life to get between Shoshanna's legs and stay there. She had one hand braced against Shoshanna's thigh, the other teasing, pressing, learning every twitch and shudder and rhythm of her.

She knew now. She understood this body. This rhythm. This woman.

Shoshanna's legs jerked. Her stomach clenched. Her heels dug into the blanket they'd laid down like it could tether her to the earth. And then--

A cry. Muffled. Cut off by her own hand.

And a long, helpless, hot exhale.

"Oh my God," she whispered, voice raw and broken when she finally let her hand fall away. "Oh my fucking God, Rivka."

And Rivka, mouth slick, chin wet, eyes gleaming like twin stars in the cave-dark, looked up and grinned. The grin of a woman who knew exactly what she'd done.

"See?" she said, crawling back up to lay against her. "Told you I wasn't a poet."

Shoshanna turned into her, clung to her, still catching her breath.

"No," she murmured. "But you're a miracle worker."

And lo, beneath the holy hush and the snore of distant sheep, two women lay tangled like vines beneath the rock, their bodies still humming with praise, while the prophet outside kept right on talking.

And it came to pass, in the stifling belly of the cave, with sweat slicking shoulders and figs long since consumed, that the prophet did once again lift his voice like a goddamn broken shofar.

"And I beheld a firmament above the heads of the living creatures, and under it, wheels, and in the wheels, eyes, and in the eyes, FIRE--"

"Ezekiel," Doran growled, wiping goat grease from his beard with the back of his hand, "if God won't smite you, I fucking will."

And for one single, sacred second--

Ezekiel paused.

Blink.

"... You serious right now?" he asked, in a completely normal voice. No thunder. No scripture. Just some guy.

Doran stood up slow, arms crossed. "You're on your third vision since lunch. You've described seven kinds of fire, five weird beasts, and the exact number of cherubic wings. Nobody asked."

Ezekiel blinked again. Looked around. Half the cave was glaring. One man was massaging his temple. Someone else had made a tiny pile of pebbles and named it 'Mount Shutthefuckup.'

"... Right," Ezekiel said, voice still normal. "My bad."

But lo, the madness returned like floodwaters breaking through. His eyes rolled back and the fire caught in his throat again.

"AND I BEHELD A HAND STRETCHING FORTH FROM THE CLOUD--"

Doran hurled a sandal at him.

And it hit. Square in the chest. The Lord did not intervene.

"Don't test me, Zeke," Doran muttered, sitting back down. "God's not the only one handing out judgment tonight."

And all the people said: Amen.

And from the back of the cave, somewhere hidden and breathless, came the faintest sound of a woman laughing into someone's chest.

And in the cool cradle of the cave, where prophecy had worn itself hoarse and all divine visions had been drowned in goat bones and sweat, Shoshanna traced her fingers over something far more urgent, far more sacred than scripture.

Rivka lay on her side, dark curls plastered to her temple, one thigh draped over Shoshanna's. Her robe was open now--fully, utterly. Her breasts spilled free like they couldn't not, heavy and soft and absurd in the dark, their weight undeniable even in shadow.

Shoshanna, still breathless, still wrecked, reached out with both hands and cupped one.

It took both hands.

"God," she whispered. "It's like holding a promise I don't deserve."

Rivka snorted. "See, that's what I meant to say earlier. But I said 'gourd' like an asshole."

Shoshanna smiled, eyes locked on the swell of flesh beneath her palms. "No, you were right. They're like gourds. Enormous, perfect gourds that make me want to build a shrine."

"You want to worship my tits?"

"Rivka," Shoshanna murmured, running her thumb slowly over the nipple until it hardened, "these are... sun-warmed loaves. They're two moons rising over the hill country of Ephraim. They're--fuck--they're like the parting of the Red Sea if the water was replaced with honey."

Rivka laughed so hard she nearly choked. "Okay, damn, I didn't know I was fucking the village poet."

Shoshanna leaned in, mouth open against the curve of one breast, then the other. "I just know a good thing when it's pressed up against my face."

Her kisses turned hungry. Tongue, now. Teeth, just a little. Her hands greedy, squeezing and lifting, like she was trying to see if they had a bottom. One of Rivka's legs jerked.

"Fuck, Shosh..."

"You didn't tell me they were this sensitive."

"You were busy coming."

"Yeah," Shoshanna said, dragging her lips across the valley of cleavage like a woman in a desert finding water, "and now it's your turn."

And lo, the woman of small breasts worshipped at the altar of abundance, and her mouth wrote a psalm of its own--half lust, half laughter, and all devotion.

Outside, Ezekiel shouted something about a scroll of lamentations written on both sides.

But inside?

There was no lamenting.

Only tongues and trembling and the weight of miracles pressed against eager hands.

And it came to pass that Ezekiel, son of way-too-much-sun and questionable hydration, did wander out into the starlight, barefoot and muttering, wrapped in his own sweat-soaked linen like a curse no one had lifted.

No wheels tonight. No fire. No beasts with eyes. Just stars. So many stars it made him feel small and infinite all at once. And that, honestly, pissed him off more than anything else.

He stood alone on a rock outcropping, arms folded, glaring at the sky like it owed him something.

"They're all assholes," he muttered. "Ungrateful. Mockers. Scoffers. Philistines in borrowed robes."

A beetle scuttled past him.

Ezekiel kicked dust at it. "You get it."

He sat down with a grunt, pulled his robe tighter around him like it was armor. The stars wheeled slowly above him. Silent. Majestic. Disappointingly indifferent.

"They don't see," he said. "They never see. I bring them the visions. The fire. The living creatures with four wings and four faces and four--no, wait, six wings. That was a different thing."

He waved a hand. The beetle had left. Probably unimpressed.

Ezekiel sighed, pulled his knees up, rested his chin on them.

"I'm not crazy," he whispered.

A pause.

"... Mostly."

The wind stirred. Someone inside the cave laughed, low and soft and very familiar. Probably one of the women. Probably Rivka. That traitorous milk-and-honey-hearted woman with the laugh like warm bread.

Ezekiel scowled into the dark.

"Mount Sinai," he grumbled bitterly. "More like Mounts Sinai. Horeb's fuckin' twins."

He blinked.

"Wait. Is it Mounts Sinai? Mount Sinais? Sinaii?"

He made a face. "God, give me grammar or give me death."

No answer.

The stars twinkled on. Eternal. Cold.

"... Big fucking tits, though," he added quietly. "Like, enormous. You could store the commandments under those and no one would ever find them."

He sat there, miserable, horny, and muttering like a man who used to dream in divine tongues but now mostly dreamed of tits and vengeance.

And lo, the prophet sat alone, unkissed and unsucked, whispering curses into the wind while love and glory burned behind him in the dark like a secret he would never understand.

Meanwhile, Gary ducked into the cave, wings catching on the entrance. The glow around him flickered with mild administrative embarrassment.

"Hello?" he called out, scroll in hand. "Anyone here named Shoshanna? Or possibly Rivka? I've got a message--divine origin, semi-urgent, subject line: 'Flesh of my flesh, psalm of my psalm'--"

Ezekiel storms in, goat bone in hand, sweat streaking down his temples like anointing oil gone wrong. He turned.

"Oh no," Gary muttered.

"Behold!" Ezekiel bellowed, eyes wide and wild. "A messenger of fire! A seraph clothed in deceit! The beast with eyes has sent another!"

Gary held up a glowing hand. "No, no, no, not a beast. I'm Gary. Third Choir, Celestial Communications. I'm not here for you, I swear--"

"You think I cannot see through your veils, O tempter of the air!" Ezekiel lunged forward, swinging the goat bone like a club.

"Whoa!" Gary flinched. "Okay, easy, prophet dude--look, this isn't your prophecy. This isn't even your millennium! I'm just here on a pre-Messiah delivery. The Big Guy is done with symbolism. Now we're going for timetables, receipts, no more allegory. I drop off the message, you go back to screaming about fire and wheels, everyone wins."

Ezekiel raised the bone higher.

"Don't make me smite," Gary warned, but not very convincingly.

Ezekiel's eyes flared. "I have heard the voice of the LORD, and He said: No More Fucking Prophecies!"

"That's not-- He didn't say that!"

With a scream that cracked the silence like judgment, Ezekiel charged. Gary dropped the scroll, flapped backward into a hanging oil lamp, and cursed in angelic Enochian.

"This always happens!" he yelled, backpedaling toward the exit. "Every time I try to be proactive! Why did I even try the direct approach?!"

A rock flew past his head. Another. A sandal.

"I have a message!" Gary cried, one wing singed by the lamp. "In exactly 571 years--"

"NO!" Ezekiel roared. "NO MORE TIMELINES! NO MORE VISIONS! NO MORE BASTARD BABIES IN MANAGERIES!"

"... Mangers," Gary wheezed, scrambling into the starlight. "It's called a manger!"

Another rock.

"Fine. Allegory it is. Could have been clear, but in 2500 years, they can blame Zeke if someone thinks faith can be used for personal gain and political causes."

Gary vanished with a puff of startled light.

Back in the cave, silence returned. Talia coughed. Adah whispered, "Was that an actual angel?"

Devorah, half-asleep and unimpressed, rolled over. "No. Just a big pigeon with a clipboard and delusions of grandeur."

And in the back of the cave, beneath a pile of robes and quiet gasps, Shoshanna murmured into Rivka's neck, "Did you hear something?"

Rivka kissed her shoulder. "Just Zeke. Probably saw a squirrel again."

And Ezekiel, panting in the dust, waved the goat bone in triumph.

"I won," he muttered.

He did not.

Selah.