I almost spit my orange juice when I realized that, last night, I’d imagined myself into a sexual fantasy. And with Papa.

  “Something wrong, kiddo?” Carl asked.

  “No!” I choked. “It went down wrong.” In the cold light of morning, I’d been wondering how sanitary cunnilingus from behind was. Didn’t it put the guy’s nose right in her ass? Maybe if she cleaned really well first? A sanitary wipe? Fresh panties?

  Carl looked skeptical, as well he should because I was sure my face was flaming. My fantasy had been a lot more explicit than chasing after a Greek god and letting him catch me. “Okay, Hemingway,” he finally said. “So are you going to be up for church today? No pressure but Aunt Sophie might not be here next Sunday, and I kinda want to see her stomp on any busybodies when you’re introduced. And trust me, you’ll want to see it.”

  “I—yeah, I’m good for it.” The thought sobered me right up, and I took a deep breath. I’d put it off and put it off, but, “Sooner or later, right? So better sooner.”

  Carl turned serious. “Hey. It’ll be no big deal. Good Shephard Universalist is all about the love—sin is shit you pull against your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself, do unto others, God loves you so don’t be an asshole, Christian fellowship, all that good stuff.”

  “So, why Aunt Sophie?” I asked. “If that’s what it’s all about?”

  “Because there’s always a few judgy people who don’t get the message and need to be reminded what’s what. But it’s a close congregation, we look out for each other. You’ll be one of us in next to no time.”

  “What he said,” May seconded, entering the kitchen. “I laid your dress out on your bed, honey, we leave in an hour if you’re coming.” It was a long-sleeved purple dress so dark it was almost black with a white Peter Pan collar and cuffs and a flared skirt, short enough that it came with white tights—which I’d tried on already and felt deeply strange but I’d have to get used to for school—and a matching white twisted cloth Alice band. I nodded and finished my juice, picking up my breakfast plate to put it in the dishwasher. May side-hugged me on the way out of the kitchen, kissing my hair. “You’ll do fine, sweetheart.”

  I refrained from sighing like a dramatic teenager. Lines had to be drawn somewhere. “I know, Mom. You’ll be all that is goodness and light and Dad and Aunt Sophie will slay all who look at me sideways.”

  “Dammed right,” Carl said, not even blinking at the Dad now. “There shall be fear and lamentation as we crush our foes beneath the wheels of our chariots and drive them before us.”

  “Carl! Don’t encourage her. Or Aunt Sophie.”

  *******************************************

  I hadn’t thought it through, and I really should have.

  For the past month’s Sundays, when I’d cravenly not come to services with them, May had proceeded to light her reputation on fire with her church friends by telling them the whole story we’d agreed upon (the story she’d spun up and I’d nodded along to without thinking, really) of her daughter coming to live with her. I hadn’t put it together with my new official age of eighteen, but it meant Mom had been barely a teen when she’d given birth to me, with no father she’d name to go on the birth certificate, and given me to a geographically distant relative to raise.

  Yes, it had given me the strongest possible new background, with May and Sophie, as the two principals listed on my birth records and guardianship papers, fully available to answer any questions about me. But it painted May as a sexually precocious almost-pre-teen mother. And if Aunt Sophie had been my legal guardian and parental figure throughout my childhood, why was I really here now?

  What May had told everyone was I wanted to get to know my new baby sister before I was all grown up and off to college, and now here before the service I heard a couple of less charitable ladies whisper that Aunt Sophie had for sure dumped me on them now that May had finally decided to be a mom.

  Only I overheard that one; I was sure of that because nobody died.

  But Reverend Brandt was extremely welcoming and encouraging, shaking my hand and telling me about Good Shepherd’s wonderful youth program, with a Sister Edwards as the Older Youth Teacher who I simply had to meet. Leaving Carl in charge of Steph after the service ended, May pulled me over to the twentyish woman to introduce me and hand her a mysterious green card.

  The businesslike brunette took the card and shook my hand with a wide smile. “It’s wonderful to meet you, April. We have a lovely little Older Youth class, although I don’t think any of your classmates go to your school.”

  May disappeared while Sister Edwards talked, and when I realized the fix was in I nearly panicked. Swallowing my nerves I nodded not knowing what I was nodding about as the woman kept talking, leading me away down a hall off the church lobby. It held the nursery and kitchen and three classrooms, and she ushered me into the smallest of them, leaving the door open. I took the seat furthest from the door (knees together and tugging the skirt of my dress down) as eight kids joined us, five boys and three girls.

  The class of “older youth” looked to be sixteen and up, and Sister Edwards took a green card from each as she welcomed them and I tried to not make eye contact without looking like I was avoiding making eye contact. How could this be so hard after I’d done so well—mostly—at the party last night?

  Well, there you had a plan. When the last boy came in and she shut the door behind him and took her seat I was still trying to figure out my plan for this.

  “Good morning everyone,” she said brightly. “It’s wonderful to see all of you. I hope that you’ve been introduced to April, she’s joining our class today and hopefully in the future. And I’m glad to see that you all got parental permission for today’s class—” She held up the cards. “—a Christian understanding of sex.”

  Oh, hell no. I sat frozen as nervous chuckles and giggles filled the room around me. Really? Really?

  Ignoring everyone’s nerves, she smiled around the circle at us. “To begin with, who can tell me the difference between sexual attraction and lust?”

  Oh, God. Despite my mortification (shared by everyone else), the lecture rolled forth. And took a surprising turn.

  She dispensed with sexual attraction pretty quickly; experiencing sexual attraction towards each other was perfectly natural—indeed unavoidable in the bodies God had given us since we were teens and brimming with hormones. So we shouldn’t feel ashamed of our feelings of physical attraction, no matter how powerful; they were part of us and God made us.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  To lust after someone, on the other hand, according to Sister Edward, essentially meant to actively crave sexual satisfaction from them. Lust was also perfectly natural but more controllable and to be avoided since giving lust free reign could easily lead to actual acts of sexual immorality. And she recited a list, obviously quoting; “‘. . . evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.'"

  Just when I thought I knew where this was going, though, she stopped and looked around at all of us. “Hearing that list of sins given by the apostle Mark, do you notice anything?”

  The response was total silence, but her smile didn’t slip. “Leaving aside for the moment sexual immorality, adultery, and lustful desires, consider the rest of them,” she encouraged us. “Evil thoughts. Theft. Murder. Greed. Deceit. Envy. Slander. Pride. Tell me about them.”

  One of the girls tentatively half-raised a hand and said “They’re all sins against other people. Or . . . thoughts that might tempt you to sin against them?”

  “Exactly!” She nodded enthusiastically. “Evil thoughts, hatred, can lead to slander or murder. Greed can lead to deceit and theft. Pride and envy can take us right back to slander, murder, deceit, and theft, things that most definitely harm other people. So why are lustful desires, which can lead to sexual immorality and adultery, in there? And just to be clear the original Greek word translated here as ‘sexual immorality’ is porneia, also translated as ‘fornication,’ sexual acts between the unmarried. Why are they on the same list?”

  That got a stumped silence, which she patiently waited out before finally nodding. “Perhaps it might help to ask another question instead. What do fornication and adultery have in common, other than both being sexual acts performed outside of marriage?”

  After a moment the same brave girl raised her hand again. “Both involve two people?”

  “Yes! Yourself and someone else. So what does it tell you that lust is placed on a list with thoughts that can lead to harmful actions? That fornication is listed with acts that harm others?”

  I was shocked to find myself opening my mouth. “ . . . She thinks he’s all into her, but he really just wants to get her panties off. Or the other way around and he's got a serious crush and she just wants the hookup ‘cause she’s drunk and horny. Or he thinks she’s okay with the casual hookup and she might think that too, but she winds up feeling used. Or he thinks she’s attracted to him, wants him, where really she wants what he can do for her. Or—” Or Lorrie fucking Waters. My mind ground to a stop on all the possibilities for miscommunication, manipulation, and heartbreak. Swallowing around the sudden knot in my throat, with everyone staring at me I fell back on the concocted story they all had to know by now. “Hey, my mom was impregnated by an older guy she never named but who sure didn’t care about her.”

  The sympathy in Sister Edwards’ eyes practically had me squirming guiltily at my lie—even though I had seen all those stories, even the last one, play out in the lives of classmates and later employees. And for me it had been Lorrie Waters, the pretty artist who I’d thought was actually into me in college, who’d led me around by my male hormones until I’d found out she only wanted me as an art subject, that she’d wanted to memorialize my big puffy body on canvas in oil as a contrast to the male ideal.

  “As April has pointed out,” Sister Edwards said gently when nobody else jumped in, “there is tremendous potential for harm in sexual relations. For using other people or being used, even if harm isn’t meant, and for bruised feelings and heartbreak. Let’s not forget that foolishness is also on that list as well, actions of harm and self-harm intended or not. Our sexual desires are powerful. Our instincts push us towards each other and towards a natural act that has the potential to create life. And it’s scientifically proven that, under the influence of lust, we lose a good deal of our ability to think clearly.”

  She laughed lightly, startling everyone.

  “And if you haven’t experienced a deep romantic or sexual attraction for anyone yet, then take my word for it, it’s a little like being drunk. Evolution has programmed us to be stupid about sex and ‘What was I thinking?’ is often a thought we beat ourselves with after acting very stupidly because of strong attraction. When we lust after someone, under its influence we can easily put our desires above their good and our own good. And there is something else.”

  She leaned forward a little as if preparing to impart a secret, looking around at everyone.

  “Sex feels very, very good. God intended it to, and it can be very pleasurable when you both know what you’re doing.” She waited for the embarrassed laughter and giggling to die. “But unlike every other act we find pleasurable, it is tied to our hearts. It both enables the expression of deep emotional intimacy and creates emotional intimacy. It’s all about hormones again. As I said, our bodies drive us towards sex, but our bodies also drive us to bond. During sex—especially great sex—both men and women’s bodies release oxytocin—that’s the "love hormone" known to promote feelings of connection and bonding with a partner—and dopamine, a "feel-good" neurotransmitter that lights up the reward center of your brain, a natural high. Women get a lot more of the oxytocin boost than men do, but experiencing that dopamine high, and connecting it with the other person who gave it to you, is powerfully bonding for both.” She let that sink in before continuing.

  “In other words, sex can create or enhance feelings about your partner, and on the whole women find themselves much more emotionally affected by the act of sex than men. So if you do the wild thing with someone, as opposed to with your own fist or fingers—” (more red-faced laughter) “—remember that your heart may become involved. Their heart may become involved. In the Christian context, it all comes back around to loving each other as we love ourselves and this means being careful with each other. It means being safe and not engaging in risky behaviors that may hurt you or your partner—and by that, I do mean stuff you’ve already learned about in sex education class but, above all I mean being careful with each other’s hearts.”

  I sat there quietly shocked by a lesson in Christian morality that didn’t so much as hint that sex was bad and instead stressed interpersonal ethics, but after a few more minutes talking about our Christian duty of care to each other, all seriousness fled and Sister Edwards ended with selected verses from the Song of Solomon, finishing with “‘Your breasts are like fawns, twins of a gazelle, grazing among the first spring flowers. The sweet, fragrant curves of your body, the soft, spiced contours of your flesh invite me, and I come. I stay until dawn breathes its light and night slips away.’” And “‘Oh, let my lover enter his garden! Yes, let him eat the fine, ripe fruits.’”

  She read playfully and I almost started laughing as around the circle most of the boys were obviously tenting their pants, covering up with crossed legs or books. Bibles! The girls looked pretty flushed themselves and my face felt hot—mostly at how ripe fruits tied into the much earthier poem I’d read and masturbated to last night—but at least I had years more perspective in handling social embarrassment. Nobody comments, we’re all just fine.

  From her smile, Sister Edwards knew just what she’d done. Clapping her hands she launched into a quick discussion of upcoming youth activities and a reminder of the reading for next week, giving everyone a moment to cool off and settle down, finishing the class by asking everyone to remember and be mindful that their class motto was “Be a blessing, not a trial,” before closing with a prayer.

  And afterward the roomful of teens, a couple of whom I had seen looking my way before the church service had started, had to introduce themselves to me. Steve, Eric, Lois (the brave one), Amy, Vince, Carl, Angela, and Don. The oldest, Eric, was a high school senior. He’d been one of the boys who’d more openly checked out my legs when he entered the classroom, but really every boy had; I was the “new girl”, and I remembered my own teen years when any girl in a skirt drew a look-over even if only a quick one. Now pinned down by their attention, all of my nerves returned to the point that I almost found myself stuttering and Why the hell can’t I handle this? I barely made my escape look like I wasn’t fleeing in terror.

  busy. I hope everyone is enjoying April's adventures so far and hasn't encountered any head-bangers that have thrown them out of the story.