The Harlot by The Side of The Road: Forbidden Tales of The Bible Read Free Page A

much friendlier to their own neighbors. Toward women, they were like beasts. On the day before they fled to the mountains, Lot’s family had learned that lesson once again.
    And the two angels came to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom; and Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them; and he fell down on his face to the earth; and he said: “Behold now, my lords, turn aside, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your way.” And they said: “Nay; but we will abide in the broad place all night.” And he urged them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat
.
    — GENESIS 19.1-3    
     
    Their father returned to the house after nightfall with two hooded strangers. They had appeared at sunset at the gates to the city, where Lot bowed low to them and begged them to come home with him for a bath, an evening meal, and a bed for the night. At first the strangers refused: “We will spend the night on the street,” they said. But Lot begged and pleaded with them, as was his custom when he encountered strangers who might bring him some good fortune, and they finally agreed to follow him home.
    “Make welcome our guests,” he commanded the women of the household, suddenly stern and imperious. “Wash their feet and make a meal for them!” And then Lot whispered to his wife the same wishful words she had heard many times before from her husband: “Who knows when an ordinary stranger on the road might turn out to be an angel sent from heaven?”
    But the neighbors up and down the lane were not so welcoming. Someone had noticed the two strangers following Lot back to his house, and a knot of rowdy young men gathered outside his door. Perhaps they had been drinking, which was hardly surprising in Sodom, but wine alone did not explain their rough manners, which were common enough around town. Bored with the all-too-familiar pleasures readily available to them in Sodom, the townsfolk were aroused by the very presence of strangers: Here was fresh meat! Soon the young men were joined by other curiosity-seekers, young and old, and the crowd began to grow into a mob.
    But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young and old, all the people came from every quarter. And they called unto Lot, and said unto him: “Where are the men that came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.”
    — GENESIS 19:4–5    
     
    “Hey, bring them out,” someone shouted. “Bring out the strangers and let us have a look at them!”
    “Yes, bring them out,” another one called in a slurred voice, “so we can bugger them!”
    And the rest of the crowd took up the cry, not only the rowdy young men who always seemed to range through the streets in search of excitement but their fathers and uncles, too. To Lot’s younger daughter, who peered out from a window on the second floor while her sister cowered in bed, it seemed as if every lout and his brother had gathered outside their house.
    Then she saw her father boldly step out of the house and close the door behind him. The crowd fell silent, as if in sheer amazement that Lot would actually leave the safety of his house and expose himself to their shouts, their fists—and worse.
    “No, no, my friends,” he said to them in a lilting voice, seeking to ingratiate himself with them by a fatherly scolding. “Do not be so wicked!”
    “We want to bugger
someone!”
a voice called out from somewhere in the crowd, a voice thick with liquor and dangerous with the threat of sudden violence. His words were greeted with laughter that sounded like the braying of donkeys. “Give them to us!”
    What her father said in reply, the younger daughter found hard to believe even though she heard it plainly.
    “Look, my friends, I have two