Read The Harlot by The Side of The Road: Forbidden Tales of The Bible for Free Online

into the mouth of the jar.
    “I’ll save some for tomorrow,” he announced virtuously. “I’ll make it last.”
    “No, father, drink your fill Actually, the truth is that I found two jars. So you will still have a drink tomorrow.”
    “Two jars you have hidden?” Lot said. He drank a long draught, belched loudly, and then drank again. Deprived of wine for so long, he seemed to feel the stuff boil up into his head as soon as it touched his lips. His eyes blurred, and his head swam. To his amazement, his daughter seemed to disappear before his eyes, although he could not be sure because the cave itself seemed to tilt crazily and slip into profound darkness as the sun went down. He took another long sip and allowed himself to doze.
    Lot’s daughter, crouching a few feet away in the darkness, heard the rhythmic sound of his breathing. She sighed, then unfastened her robe and set herself to the task at hand. Her father was heavy and hard to handle, and she was panting with exertion as she struggled to position him. So drunk was her father that when she emerged from the cave some time later, he did not even stir.
    ———
     
    And it came to pass on the morrow, that the first-born said unto the younger: “Behold, I lay yesternight with my father. Let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.” And they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose, and lay with him; and he knew not when she lay down, nor when she arose
.
    — GENESIS 19:34–35    
     
    The younger sister was waiting at the mouth of the cave, watching the reflection of the full moon on the far-distant waters of the Dead Sea, when the older one joined her at last. She half-expected her older sister to look somehow disfigured, somehow tainted, but the moonlight did not reveal any obvious scars. She noticed only that her sister seemed pale and fatigued and vaguely disheveled.
    “What happened?” the younger one asked with urgent curiosity. “What did he say?”
    “He didn’t say anything, thank God,” the older one said grimly. “He was too drunk to even notice.”
    “He didn’t notice when you—”
    “He did not even know I was there,” her older sister interrupted, as if afraid to hear spoken out loud what had happened back in the cave, “and he didn’t even know when I left.” She paused. “I did what I had to do, and when I was done, I left him fast asleep like a beast.”
    “Well,” the younger one ventured, “that makes it all a little easier, doesn’t it?”
    “Yes, it does,” the older one said. “And tomorrow, little sister, it’s your turn.”
    The younger one was silent.
    “But there are some things you’ll have to know,” the older sister began. “Some things you’ll have to do.”
    “You’ve already told me how to make a baby—”
    “Well, as it turns out, there’s more you need to know,” she said. “At least, when the man is dead drunk on the floor, there’s more.”
    “What do you mean, sister?”
    Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. And the first-born bore a son, and called his name Moab
—
the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi
—
the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day
.
    — GENESIS 19:36–38    
     
    Lot’s older and now wiser daughter pulled the younger one to her side and began to explain.
    If Lot remembered anything of what happened on those two nights on the mountain, he said nothing of it. Even when the bellies of his daughters began to swell, even when it was quite obvious that they had lain with
someone
long after the last man in Sodom had been slain, Lot was silent.
    When Lot’s daughters gave birth, the older one called her son Moab, which means “from father,” and the younger one called her son Benammi, which means “son of my kin.” But Lot gave no