Chapter 2: Takes Me to Church

Beth picked me up right at eight o’clock sharp. I hopped in the front seat and she was taking off before I even had my seatbelt buckled. She didn’t say a word and just started driving out of town. We were heading to the west side and soon were out in the rural areas. Where the heck were we going? I looked at Beth and she just smiled at me and kept her mouth shut, keeping her cards close to her chest.

Finally Beth turned off a small side road and pulled into a parking lot next to a small old church. It had white siding with the paint peeling and a little steeple. No doubt it was nothing more than a sanctuary with maybe a basement, typical for the area. It was so run-down that at first I thought it was abandoned but then I saw the parking lot was filled with cars. There was a dilapidated sign out front listing the service times along with the current date so obviously someone was still using it. If that was the case, why were we here?

“You’re actually taking ME to church?” I asked incredulously as she turned off the engine.

It was remarkable that as close as we were in almost everything we did, we were polar opposites when it came to religion. I’m a fervent, born-again Christian, pray and read my Bible regularly, and attend church regularly. I even attended a Christian-based university. In contrast, I don’t think Beth has even set foot in a church for years and the only time she prays is to the porcelain god after a party. Somehow we’ve managed to keep our religious differences from causing any conflicts between us. Even so, it still shocked me to be sitting in a church parking lot with her, regardless of the reason. Well, there was a first time for everything.

“Sorry Kelly, you still haven’t converted me,” she teased me. “Really, you have no idea how hard it is to find the right place for something like this. Lucky for me one of my guys attends here and so he was able to get it for us tonight.”

By “my guys”, I knew she was referring to someone she hung around with at her sex parties so that certainly narrowed the field down - to maybe a hundred men or more. And what was this remark about “right place for something like this”? What the heck was “this” and what was she up to now? After my shocking birthday party surprise a few weeks earlier, I was prepared for about anything if Beth was in charge of the planning.

Beth had passed by several empty parking spots and ended up parking way in back of the church. We got out and she led me to a small entry door which was locked. She pulled out a key from her purse, unlocked the door, and sure enough, we entered a small kitchen and basement. There was nobody in sight but I could hear movement above us, evidently the people were all gathered up in the sanctuary.

“Ummmmm, Beth ... why are we down here and everybody else is up there?” I asked her, pointing to the ceiling.

Something just didn’t feel right about all this but I couldn’t put my finger on it. If you had asked me an hour earlier, the LAST place I would have guessed I would be now would have been in the basement of a broken-down old country church.

Beth led me to a set of steep stairs which looked to lead up to the sanctuary. Just as we reached the top of the stairs, she turned to me and gave me the once over, putting her hand to her chin as if she was deep in thought about something or another. Then she looked at me and grinned, asking, “Well girlfriend, are you ready?”