My robes swishing about me, I sauntered out of my tent and into the blazing sunlight. As usual, stares of the soldiers and man-servants accompanied my appearance, all gleaming eyes and licked lips. Ordinarily I savoured their displays of lust, but not today. I sought only one donor of desire, and I knew he would give me nothing.
I went to the outbuilding that housed the prisoners and pushed the wooden door open. It creaked, but I ignored it, along with the protests from the guards. "Silence," I commanded anything with ears, retrieving a burning torch from a sconce, before venturing underground to make my way to the last cell.
As I shoved his door aside, rats squeaked and scurried away from my adorned feet. But I cared only for the figure that sat in the dirt, clothed in sackcloth with his hands and feet encased in pillory and stocks.
"Johanan the Baptist," I uttered his name.
He looked up to the light I held. "Salome the Third," he responded.
"You know my name?" I could barely suppress a purr from my voice.
"How could anyone not?" He asked dully. "There has not been such a harlot since Jezebel."
"How dare you! I am a betulah!" I gasped, taken aback by his candor.
"Your form is of no mystery." He informed me. "Those who have seen your dance speak about it as a conquest amongst them. Your maidenhead might very well remain intact, but you have already given yourself away as a wife to many."
"The dance is a work of art," I reminded him. "Requested by many, but granted to few!"
"All art is vanity," He looked towards the ceiling. "Better to leave creation to the Creator, the only one who can produce sinless perfection."
I wanted to slap him. Well, more than anything, I wanted to kiss him, to hear him moan with pleasure as I offered him my forbidden fruits.
He closed his eyes, smiling slightly as he imagined something. Could it be me?
Hope sprang up in my heart like water from a fountain. "What do you see?" I asked him desperately, dropping down to my knees and holding the torch out so that it might illuminate his strangely handsome features.
"My cousin," he said, not opening his eyes. "The ultimate example of Yahweh's creations."
"Your cousin? That wandering magician?" I was disgusted. "What are you, a fegeleh?"
A frown creased his forehead, but still, he kept his eyes shut. "You speak of what you know. This is all that you understand, desire, when you could know love."
"Love?" I felt suddenly parched. "What could you teach me of love?"
"Very little." He mumbled. "Yeshua is superior in that respect."
"But I do not seek Yeshua's instruction," I placed my hand on Johanan's thigh, and instantly his eyes opened, and he pulled away from me, as if I had stroked him with the torch's fire instead of my soft fingertips.
"You ought to!" He snarled, still reeling from me, as if I were the most repulsive of maidens, rather than one who's dowry was so expansive that even the great King Solomon could not afford me.
I could not help but be offended. Angry tears pricked my eyes. "I could save you!" I told him. "I could speak one word and Herod would pardon you for all your transgressions! You might be on your way, eating locusts and drowning folk in the Jordan!"
"I do not seek forgiveness from sinners," He advised me, turning his face away, though his nostrils flared.
I straightened, rising to my full height, and my robes shifted with the sudden movement, falling off my shoulders and exposing me. I stared at him, daring him to seek my flesh that was glowing in the torchlight. I felt like screaming, "LOOK AT ME!" But no, I kept my jaw clenched shut.
"Leave me." Was all he said.
I adjusted my robes and left.