Teeth Could Cut Flint

All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse.

How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?

Ask the former generation and find out what their ancestors learned, they read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.

“I… I… I…”

The whip hangs in the air, poised, terrifying in its inaction. The calm before another incoming storm. 

“Do you confess, witch?”

“I…” I sob, look down at the wet gravel under my knees. The livid welts on my thighs. Can I take another hit? Can I persist – knowing this won’t end until I break, knowing now that this is how it will be? Relentless, brutal, and unwinnable. But can my pride take the hit I am about to bring down upon myself? 

“I confess.” 

“Witch!” Jeffiniah roars, hauling me to my feet. “You will burn for this.”

“I confess, I am what you would call a witch.” The whip is lowered, and I’m bolder now. “I serve a greater God, an older God. As you follow a book of lies, I have signed my name in Her book of truth. But are our faiths so different, Jeffiniah?”

Have them take a young bull with its grain offering of the finest flour mixed with olive oil; then you are to take a second young bull for a sin offering.

Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”

He placed the breastpiece on him and put the Urim and Thummim in the breastpiece.Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 

It starts, as it always does, with me writing a check my ass can’t cash but will anyway. i suggest a witch trial with a fully formed creative vision in mind – me, dressed in a modest blouse and long skirt, shambling miserably across a field in heavy chains as Mx bellows accusations of witchcraft in my face, whipping a baying mob into a frenzy. i am not expecting that fantasy to become reality – i wait for Them to negotiate me down to something more private, less roleplay driven, squarely in O/our comfort zone. Instead They say – maybe some of O/our pals could help out. Maybe W/we pick a public spot. 

W/we record a podcast episode with two experienced roleplayers, and my mind starts ticking, so does Theirs – characters form, in negotiation sessions that shift gradually from collaboration to competitive-edged guarded conversations as W/we share what W/we must to create Chastity and Jeffiniah’s shared life and world. It’s not quite the 1600s, but it’s not quite 2026 either. An anachronistic tangle of professional witch finders who film their torture sessions on smart phones, mostly modern language but slightly stilted – Jeffiniah, I cannot screamed repeatedly as Chastity stumbles over her shackled feet – and layers of plot twists, hidden agendas, and deceptions. 

Chastity takes on a life of her own in my head. She has pieces of me – my faith, my patron Goddess, but transported to a world where she can’t (cannot) openly express it. A different childhood, if not necessarily a better one – a mother deep into witchcraft whose soul had been sold and soon her life lost too. Christianity calling to her as an adult as a rebellion and source of freedom, not an oppressive shadow on her youth as it was to me. But not finding what she sought there, being drawn like a magnet to the hidden practices of her childhood, ultimately to the same place as me – finding joy in the perverse, freedom in the profane, her own passionate light in the dark. Chastity loves Jeffiniah just as i love Mx – and as i lay my head on Their shoulder and murmur treat me worse, she longs to corrupt Jeffiniah in her own, more underhand way. To shake his faith, to shatter his resolve, to free him from his God of abstinence, repression, and shame, and bring him maddened, blood-spattered and ecstatic into the woods with her and her Gods. Her love for Jeffiniah will lead her to the ultimate sacrifice – deliberately arousing his suspicions, forcing him to break her of all witches, and in her destruction creating in him the first seed of doubt. She will descend, as Inanna did, through the seven gates of hell, and the eighth gate will be her ascension. And Jeffiniah doesn’t know it yet, but he is coming with her. 

Meanwhile, i’m still me, and i want another fucking win. So strategy takes centre stage while Chastity develops in the background. i promise Mx i won’t use music as my psychological anchor for this interrogation, and i promise not to use silence as a tactic either. i already know that works. i want a new challenge. Instead i pull together every Chapter eight, Verse eight from the Bible, select the ones that can be frankensteined together into something that almost – but not quite – makes sense, and memorise it. Eight is the key, for Inanna’s eight pointed star and her ascension into power and forbidden knowledge. There is no consequence to me if They find it out, but having an extra secret feels like another layer of armour, and it delights me. The repetition will mark time and distract from suffering, and the very real plea to my God will strengthen me as it always has. i spend weeks memorising the insane ramble – nearly three minutes of it – and in my spare time i prepare my dramatic confession. Just in case. 

So there was great joy in that city, a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey. 

When you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do what the Lord has commanded. See to it; you have my orders.

Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.

At 6am in O/our tent on Thursday, i wake up to Mx riding the edge of a panic attack. Their fingers clench around mine so tight it hurts as i try to draw Them into conversation about anything other than the scene. Sadists aren’t used to the find out stage of fuck around and find out, and Mx is learning the very hard way how it feels to want to kick the shit out of the version of You that has ideas like “post on a public group on Fetlife asking people to come watch a witch trial”. 

i won’t find out till a couple of days later how close They actually came to pulling the plug, but on the surface at least They calm down, disappear to do Their preparation and leave me to do mine. i shower, pin up my hair, and dress in Chastity’s clothes – a long blue skirt and a high necked, long sleeved white blouse. With minimal makeup and walking boots i can see her slip into my skin immediately – modest, practical, and deeply dishonest Chastity. There she is. It’s Chastity who slips a crystal into each pocket, pulls on underwear with three miniature glass jars containing sigils stitched into the waistband, and hangs a bag of crystals on a leather thong around her neck, tucked discreetly into her blouse. Two clues remain to total eight – the seventh is a smooth crystal that she hides inside her vagina, the eighth is a tarot card (Strength, number eight, of course) which she lays conspicuously on the bed in the tent. 

Chastity fights me for control as time crawls towards the agreed time – at 10.15 W/we will become O/our characters, until then i’m just kirizal in a costume. But i sneak off to tell friends how Jeffiniah has brought me on a wholesome camping trip together, and how proud i am of his godly work. Jeffiniah is not yet present, as Mx is busy having an existential crisis packing kit in the tent and ferrying it up to the chosen location. They remove my collar though, and something shifts an inch further for U/us both. W/we are about to do and say some terrible things to each other, and for all that the roleplay and performance is new, this is exactly what W/we do best. 

And then it’s 10.15, and Mx stands frozen in front of the tent. I sit in a chair without permission. 

“What beautiful weather we are having, Jeffiniah,” I say. Mx looks back at me, alarmed. “God has blessed us.”

“He… has.” I can see the nerves, but a hint of something else too. If They can overcome this last barrier, crash through the fear… and as I will Them forward I realise I have completely forgotten to be nervous for me. That feels like it might be an advantage – or it might be utter stupidity. 

A friend turns up, and I chat to her as Chastity, wittering nonsense about my concerns with so much sin and immodest dress on this campsite. She is dressed as a sexy cow, so I apologise if I come across judgemental but say that I hope she finds Christ. She cannot keep a straight face (yesterday i was running around fully naked). Mx has disappeared into the tent again and I feel more than hear Them step over to the foot of the bed where my tarot card is waiting to trigger the start of the scene. 

“WITCH!” 

I was prepared for shouting, but I still flinch. I have never heard Mx yell so loud, but of course, this isn’t Mx. Jeffiniah bursts out of the tent and thrusts the tarot card into my face. 

“Explain yourself, witch!” 

“I found it on the ground,” I say, “Jeffiniah, calm yourself, let me explain.” They are – no, he now is continuing to roar accusations in my face. “I thought some vulnerable person might be tempted into sin, so I took it, to protect their souls! We must help them. Jeffiniah listen to me…” Jeffiniah is coming at me with a heavy, clanking chain. “Your work is making you paranoid and crazy, we have spoken of this…”

“Lies, silence your lying tongue, witch.”

“You don’t need to do this.”

My hands, feet, and neck are shackled. I don’t fight, Chastity would never defy her good and godly fiance, and kirizal agreed not to make this bit difficult (this chain restraint is the faffiest bit of kit W/we own and can’t be put on without cooperation.) It’s perfect though, immediately I feel the weight of it – the weight of the accusation, the powerlessness I have in the face of Jeffiniah’s fury, his belief, unyielding as steel. All our love, our days spent in prayer and abstinence and commitment, none of it can stand in the way of his holy mission to root the Devil out. He hauls me to my feet. 

“Walk, witch.”

He strikes me across the backside with his Bible and I cry out, falling to my knees, tears already streaming down my face. I stagger to my feet and walk, dimly aware of a crowd forming around us, marching behind us, loud cries of “Witch!” from the mob as Jeffiniah hurls more accusations. 

“We have found a witch!” he bellows, hitting me again, again, and again. I stumble, beg and reason with him but he ignores it all and drags me into the centre of the green. 

“Who here has an accusation?” 

“She turned me into a cow!” shouts the sexy cow. 

“She turned me queer!” yells a man in lingerie and cat ears. 

“I saw her naked consorting with the Devil!” 

A woman in a full head deer mask scurries into the crowd, gesturing wildly at me and making terrified, inhuman squeals. 

“Did you transform this woman?” Jeffiniah demands. 

“No! I have done nothing, I have never seen any of these people before! I am a good Christian woman, I love God!” 

There is something growing in the air – a tension that builds ever tighter even as the ripples of laughter fight to break it. The accusations are ridiculous, but Jeffiniah takes each one as deathly serious, and how can poor Chastity defend against this rising swell of paranoia? Again the Bible is brought down hard against my legs, my butt, and then Jeffiniah is in my face. He is contorted with rage, red faced, a vein throbbing in his temple. 

“I take back my betrothal,” he snarls, snatching the engagement ring from my finger. “You are nothing to me.” 

He cuts my skirt away, and I beg desperately for him not to expose me. The ruined skirt drops to the ground, the two pocketed crystals missed in the chaos and I allow myself a small smirk of satisfaction at this tiny victory. Jeffiniah reaches inside my underwear and forces his fingers inside me, and the crowd roars with approval at this fresh humiliation. He straightens up, clutching the blue stone in his hand.

“What devilry?” 

“I hold it there and squeeze it,” I say, “For the health of my pelvic floor, so on our blessed wedding night I might please you better.”

Jeffiniah slips for a second as Mx tries not to laugh. 

“If she was a virgin she would not need such tricks!” Someone shouts, and Jeffiniah agrees. 

“Whore!” he yells, and we’re back in it. 

Another blow from the Bible, and Jeffiniah grips my hair as I fall, hauls me to my feet again. 

“Confess, and this will all be over.”

“I will give you no false confession.” I am defiant now, steeled against what I know I cannot protect myself against with words. “If this is what you must do Jeffiniah, so be it. Beat me, torture me, but I am no witch.”

“Torture? That’s a good idea. I like that.” An oooh of anticipation from the crowd. 

“I know what you are. I know what you do. You delight in torturing women.”

“I torture WITCHES.”

“All the words of my mouth are just.” Jeffiniah doesn’t know it yet, but that phrase will soon be the most frustrating thing he’s ever heard. “I will not confess.”

Another hit with the Bible, and someone shouts in the crowd “I think you need a bigger spatula!”

“Spatula?” Jeffiniah turns on him, outraged. “There is no greater spatula than THE BIBLE.” 

Another ripple of laughter, but it no longer quite feels like it breaks the tension. This crowd is out for blood, and none of them are on my side. 

Jeffiniah commands me to walk, and turns me to face the track into the woods. To my ruin, to his, to bring me for the first time face to face with the witch finder and not the kind man who comes home to me. To face the worst of his nature, and to uncover the worst of mine. The trial of Chastity begins here. 

Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up eight basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 

It’s a five minute walk from the green to the shack in the woods. It feels much further, being marched at a punishing pace as I stumble over rocky ground with the heavy chain tugging at my ankles. I realise looking down that there is already blood smeared on my leg. Each blow from the Bible is agony, and more than once I collapse to my knees sobbing and breathing hard. 

“If you were truly a Christian, God would protect you from your fall,” snarls Jeffiniah, hauling me upright again. 

“Will he protect you from yours?” 

A gasp from the crowd. I twist and spit in Jeffiniah’s face. He swipes my spit away with his sleeve, and drives me forward again. 

Deep in the woods, a wooden shack comes into view. Wooden poles support a low roof, and there is gravel underfoot which I slide in as I am half dragged, half pushed down the slope. I can see the instruments of Jeffiniah’s work – how long had he been suspicious of me to have prepared this? A spiked mat is laid out on the ground, bottles of water are set to the side, and a large bag bulges ominously. I’m hyperventilating, I’m not sure when that started. The shackles are being unlocked but that brings me no comfort – a crowd of at least thirty surround us and Jeffiniah is bigger, stronger, more fueled by rage than anyone. Where would I run? I wouldn’t make it ten feet. 

“Kneel, witch.”

“No, please.” 

“Kneel.” I am forced down, and pain flares instantly through my knees and shins as the spikes bite into bare flesh. “Recite the Lord’s Prayer.”

“Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name.”

“Can you not even make the sacred sign of prayer?”

I put my hands together obediently. 

“Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

I don’t have very long to enjoy my sneakiness of emphasising every eighth word – which I have been practicing for days – before I lose the ability to emphasise anything or even remember the prayer. Something hits my back. It feels like distilled fire. It feels like I’ve been sliced down to the bone. Fuck, that was only the first hit. And I know immediately, this is only going to end one way. Minutes or hours, I am going to break. I am going to confess. My only goal now is to make it as hard for Jeffiniah as I can. 

I stumble through the prayer once, twice, as the blows fall harder and faster. The spiked mat is jerked away, and Jeffiniah is in front of me, stooped, panting, cutting away my blouse. He finds the pouch of crystals around my neck, but leaves my underwear intact and somehow misses the sigil jars stitched inside it. I excuse the suspicious pouch (“It was my mother’s – I know not what it is but I wear it to honour her, she has been dead these eight years”) and of course, no one is convinced. 

“Your mother was a witch, and so are you! Confess, and this will all be over.” 

The blouse offered little protection from the beating I endured, but I feel its absence as Jeffiniah resumes. 

“Pray!” He shouts. Another blow. “Pray!” 

I look up, and meet his wild stare. 

“All the words of my mouth are just, none of them is crooked or perverse.” He steps back, and I see the flicker of realisation that he is about to see my strategy. “How can you say we are wise for we have the law of the Lord, when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?”

“Blasphemy! What is this she speaks?”

“Ask the former generation, find out what their ancestors learned. They read from the book of the law of God, making it… clear…” another vicious blow across my back. “Giving the meaning… so the people… so the people understood what was being read.” 

“What are you saying, witch?”

“Heretic,” I spit. “Do you not even recognise the word of God?”

And I continue. “Have them take a young bull…” 

He switches between implements, each more wicked than the last. A rubber ladder-shaped strap, a silicone sjambok, and a PVC two-tail whip that Chastity has never seen before but kirizal is very familiar with being broken by. I cry, occasionally I break my flow to beg, sob, retch brokenly as the intensity of the agony turns my stomach, but always resume. 

“…the people ate and were satisfied. Afterward, the disciples picked up eight basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.” 

Sometimes my prayer is a whimper, sometimes it is a scream. Sometimes Jeffiniah orders silence and clamps his hand over my mouth and I mutter the words against his palm. I falter but I do not stop. And with perfect timing I could not have planned for, he is inches from my face, eye to eye, fist clenched in my hair when I say what I most need him to hear. 

“Just as no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.” I give him a beat, pleading with my eyes for him to understand my meaning – I long to free him, Jeffiniah, my great love, trapped in his service to a cruel God, addicted to his own cruelty being nurtured and unleashed upon the world. Just as no one has power to contain the wind, so all the power of my witchcraft cannot release him. But can I plant a seed of doubt? In breaking me, can he break his God’s hold? He throws me to the ground. 

“Shall we drown the witch?” he asks the crowd, and they roar their approval. 

Cloth covers my face, and I whisper to the fabric. 

The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood

The goat became very great, but at the height of its power the large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.

He said to me, “Son of man, now dig into the wall.” So I dug into the wall and saw a doorway there.

Even for Chastity, who has never endured such horrors, the waterboarding is a relief. Compared to the whips being breathless, soaked, vomiting and pissing myself is the closest I get to respite. I heave water and thick saliva onto the muddy gravel around my knees, and the words of my prayer come fast and desperate. 

Jeffiniah leans in close to listen, eyes narrowing as I speak of the second angel, the goat, the doorway. 

“You speak in riddles, in blasphemy.”

“I speak the word of God.” 

“You have perverted the word of God, this is a prayer to your pagan Goddess, the whore Inanna.” 

(A few weeks ago, They ran that one by me – i said Inanna would absolutely be on board with a bit of blasphemy in aid of a sadomasochistic sex game.)

Jeffiniah isn’t stupid then. I smirk, just a little, and maybe he misses it and maybe he doesn’t but it isn’t a confession and he’s going to have to work a lot harder than this if he wants one of those. 

And he knows it, so the sjambok is back. It curls around my ribs when I hunch forward, around my thighs when I rock back. I am cuffed to the post with nowhere to run but around it, and when I try that he lashes my calves viciously. It is unwinnable. 

Breaking in layers is the final defence I have left. When the confession rises in my throat I swallow it like rancid bile and spit out something else. 

“Confess your sins.”

“My sins?” The whip stills in the air. He sees it, the urge to break, to spill my guts and haemorrhage my sins out into the dirt. 

“I confess I have sinned. In my youth I got tattoos, I got piercings, I drank to excess, I dishonoured my mother and my father.”

“Blasphemous!” Jeffiniah turns to the crowd. “None of you would ever disrespect your parents.” 

The crowd confirms that they certainly would not, which seems unlikely. 

With Jeffiniah deeply unsatisfied with my confession, the beating continues. 

At another breaking point, I confess that my mother was, in fact, a witch. At another, I reveal that I am not a virgin. Scandalised gasps from the crowd, rising to horrified roars when I confess to sleeping with men and women and not even knowing how many. Jeffiniah pauses only long enough to let me incriminate myself further before lashing with ever increasing ferocity. 

I am trembling violently, cuffs biting into bruised wrists when he stoops down and offers me a bottle. 

“Water, God’s mercy for the witch.” 

The bottle is clear, and the liquid in it is decidedly not. In fact, I am slightly concerned that Jeffiniah may be dangerously dehydrated. 

“No, please,” I beg, and in between words the bottle is forced into my mouth. 

I gag violently and splutter rancid urine over both of us. Jeffiniah recoils and slaps me across the face, then comes at me again. 

This time I’m prepared. I let the piss flood my mouth, holding still, no struggle, direct furious eye contact. I take it, but I do not swallow. We’re inches apart, Jeffiniah’s eyes full of fire and hatred as he humiliates me. He withdraws the bottle and I spit an overflowing mouthful of his own piss into his face. 

The beating I take for it is brutal, the palm of his hand full force into my cheek again and again until I’m squirming and weeping but I’m laughing weakly too. His shirt is drenched, his face dripping and revolted. He dumps out the rest of the bottle over my head and steps back as I begin to speak again. 

“So I dug into the wall, and saw a doorway there…”

I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. 

As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.

As no one has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has power over the time of their death. As no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.

Jeffiniah is tender for a moment, pleading with me, reminding me of our love. Asking me softly now, will I confess for him. And I reflect it back – will he relent for me? For his bride to be, who sinned but repented, who has only ever treated him well? It’s the eye of the storm here, amidst the cruelty and the ruin as I return to my prayer – not to hide this time but to implore him to hear it, to hear me, the truth behind the crooked and perverse, the dedication in the sacrifice I offer up, the divinity in the creation and destruction swirling in the intensity between us. 

“I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.”

“How can you speak to me of love?”

“As they have done to me, since the day I brought them up out of Egypt, forsaking me and serving other Gods…”

“It is you who is serving other Gods.” 

Jeffiniah hauls me to my feet and slaps me across the stomach. I could have never imagined a slap could hurt so much and double over, howling. 

“So they are doing to you. To… you…”

Another slap. Another. I roar in agony, sagging in his arms, forced up, slapped again, the outline of his fingers is blackening and raised. 

“Just as no one has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has -“ a broken scream, a gasping for breath, to my knees again as he seizes the whip. 

“So no one has power over the time of their death.” Gritted teeth, my eyes on his. “Just as no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness…”

Lashes, agony, white hot fingers trace my shoulders, my ribs, my hips, my thighs. I cannot withstand. I cannot exist. I am shattering by inches but I need to hold out. Just one more blow, just one more second. 

“Will not… release. Release those who -“ a sob that tears my vocal cords, hopeless pulling at the cuffs, bloodied knees scrabbling in the gravel. “Who practice it.” 

“Confess.” 

And I know that I will, I know that I have to, I know that it will tumble out of me soon but still I fight to hold the words back. Jeffiniah raises the whip. 

“Wait!” 

“She speaks.” 

“I… I… I…”

And finally, I break. 

“But are our faiths so different, Jeffiniah?”

This is it – the big reveal – but I can barely remember my own name and the monologue that was my lifeline has started to slip. But I claw it up from the depths of my mind and meet Jeffiniah’s gaze, jaw clenched, acrid urine dripping from my unraveling hair. 

“Your God demands sacrifice of animals, even children, but mine asks only for sacrifice of the self. Your God creates and destroys on a whim, but mine taught me that creation and destruction are all the same. Yours promises his love in exchange for abstaining – you deny yourself all pleasures of the flesh while my God promises that pleasure will expand consciousness. Your God cast you out of Eden, my God was the sacred serpent who set us all free. She knew that hidden knowledge and strength can only be found in destruction. 

So I tried to show you, Jeffiniah. I knew I did not have the power to free you from this path, but by making you doubt our love, maybe I could make you question your faith? Maybe I could plant a seed to free you. You could be so much more than this snivelling servant to an infant God.”

Jeffiniah slips for a moment and its Mx – awestruck, delighted, speechless. I scream out to the crowd, “Innin saggura, ningu a niza zuzu igue! Inanna za’akam!*” and slump against my cuffs, waiting for the end. 

The end comes softer than expected – not another parade of humiliation. Mx asks the crowd for a moment alone with me, and there’s applause, offers of help carrying O/our kit back to camp, then fading footsteps and it’s just U/us in the woods. Chastity and Jeffiniah have slipped away too and now it’s me, trembling violently as They unlock the cuffs, and it’s Them, holding me tight and saying how well i did. It’s a slow, shaky walk back to camp, reclining with a wince on my many bruises and a picnic blanket, then a sizzle, pop, bacon smell, and Mx asks “how does that feel?”

“i can’t even feel it,” i murmur, grinning lazily up at the sky. 

But i can see it, when it’s done – VVITCH branded into my thigh. i confessed, after all – it was only right i should burn. For Chastity, it’s a punishment, but as i trace the charred letters i know this is my reward. An unforgettable scene that i can carry with me forever, something dark, brutal, beautiful, funny, and completely O/ours. W/we descended into hell together, and found power there. Now comes the dawn, as something stronger rises from the depths – Chastity could not save Jeffiniah, but i have brought Mx into something sacred, something deeply personal beneath the veneer of these characters. The same descent I made in 2017, the faith that put steel in my spine and held me through the torment of withdrawal, that made me the person that could love and be loved, could be wild and be tamed. The me that could be Theirs. 

*Lady of largest heart, with your strength, my lady, teeth could cut flint. Inanna, this is yours.