Rubbing musk on her upper lip to overpower the smell of her loss, she drew out the tin ornaments and studied them to discover which part of her body they were intended for. Rows of tin bangles on both wrists and ankles; metal bells on chains around her neck; brass bullion hanging from her earlobes; silvery ropes girthing her waist. She stared at a pair of dangling copper rosettes with streamers. What was she supposed to do with these? The rosettes did not have snaps for her ears, or pins for her hair, or clasps to hang on some part of her body. They were two identical vessels. She pressed them to her nipples. They fit. Each trinket planted a fresh kernel of shame. She was no longer a daughter, a wife, but had been transformed into Jacob’s concubine, a vessel to receive his waste. Avoiding the mirror, she painted her lips scarlet, lined her eyes with charcoal, and doused herself with a perfume of spices Jacob had bought her. The odor offended her even more than the cold jingle of metal against her flesh.

She entered the room and approached Jacob.

“Arouse me!”

She balanced herself on her toes, lifted her arms overhead, twirled her hands, and tossed her curls back, imitating the dancing Gypsies.

He clapped his hands in glee. “Faster! Faster!”

She spun beneath the oil lamp. The metal floor under her tapping feet sounded like drums. Every swing, every sway, and every ripple exaggerated the reflection of light on her ornaments and bounced off his hungry eyes. She was a silvery doll; the pliant curve of her buttocks carved against her veil. The flash of defiance in her eyes stoked his passion.

She averted her gaze from the deranged masks on the mantelpiece. The tips of her fingers traced her rosette-clad nipples as she lowered herself onto her knees, swaying backward, her long hair brushing the floor.

A roar originated from his chest. He clutched his swollen penis. “Open your legs.”

She braced herself against the enormity of his weight.

With every spurt of his lust, he threatened to bar her from heaven if she did not cherish his seed. “You’ll give me sons. Your only salvation from the fires of hell!”

The kiln shot sparks against the soot-blackened walls. Did the fires of hell have voices like the ones in the hearth that roared at her with silent mouths: You are a weakling, afraid of freedom, Rebekah?

Smoke and tears burned her eyes.

The raging monsters melted onto the iron at the bottom of the hearth only to flare up again with threatening echoes: God gave you the choice. You refused. You have lost Him.

“No!” she cried, startling Jacob out of his rhythmic frenzy.

“Say, ‘I’m your whore,’” he gasped. “Louder. Louder.”

She turned her face from him and, for the first time in their married life, touched him of her own volition to silence him.

“I’m your whore,” she whispered. Her shame ripened into guilt.