Chapter 1

“Would you like to go to Greece?”

The question broke Maggie out of her focus on the column of numbers on the computer screen in front of her. “Excuse me?” she asked, puzzled.

Dorothy, the president of the Christian charity, had posed the question. “I’m serious,” she explained. “I’m organizing a tour of our major contributors to visit Greece this summer. I’m calling the tour ‘In the Steps of Saint Paul.’ I need an assistant to help me.”

“But I have never traveled and I know nothing about Greece.” At age 37 Maggie’s travels had all been in an orbit around her home town in Kansas.

“That doesn’t matter,” Dorothy answered. “The travel agency does the logistics. What I need is somebody to help me keep twenty women contented. I know you well. You’re attractive. You’re sensible. You can pamper them, pray with them if necessary, and with a little study you can help me explain the places we’re seeing. You’ve read the New Testament?”

“I know it backwards and forwards, but I can’t afford a trip to Greece.”

“You’ll go free. I can’t pay you a salary but it will be an all expense paid trip. Unfortunately, you’ll have to put up with a crowd of rich, spoiled women for 10 days.” Dorothy laughed. Maggie was well aware that Dorothy’s patina of Christian piety often yielded to cynicism. “Think about it.”

“I will.” That afternoon Maggie could barely focus on auditing the charity’s financial accounts.

Greece! She had always dreamed of seeing the world. Five years ago she had broken out of the routine of being the wife of a small-town evangelical preacher and passed the examination to become a certified public accountant. The customers of her one-woman business were Christian organizations, churches, and preachers scattered around Kansas and neighboring states. She was efficient, flexible, painstaking -- and cheap -- and working only part time she now earned as much money as her husband, whose congregation was neither large nor wealthy.

During her business travels, Maggie had several sexual encounters. They were hurried and self-conscious and with married men as nervous as she was. She had overcome her initial guilt at being an adulteress and now was fearful only that her indiscretions would be discovered. Moreover, she had begun drinking alcohol, a vice she concealed almost as fervently as she did her illicit sex.

At home she was a different person. Three or four days a week, she was the exemplary preacher’s wife: self-effacing, tireless in her duties, the mother of two teenage children. She tried not to show signs of her newly found independence and professional confidence. A preacher’s wife in a small town in Kansas was expected to be humble, dowdy, and mediocre.

She went to sleep in her hotel room that night with images in her head of the blue Mediterranean and bright shining villages on rocky islands. Early the next morning she telephoned her husband. She always asked his permission for any endeavor. He never denied her. He enjoyed the almost-new automobile her income had purchased too much. “What would you think if I went to Greece in July for two weeks?”

“Greece? We can’t afford that.”

“It won’t cost anything ... Well, not much ... Mostly paid for. I’ll help out with a women’s group following Paul’s route in Greece.” Their church did not believe in saints. So, he was just “Paul,” not “Saint Paul.”

She continued. “I’ll take photos so I can give a presentation to the Women’s Missionary Union after I get back,” she promised. Then, she threw in the clincher. “There will be a group of rich women on this trip. The contacts will do us good.” Her husband still had the ambition — fading though it was — of becoming the pastor of a large, rich church.

He conceded.

“Thanks, dear,” she said happily. I’ll be home tomorrow. I’ll help you collect some of those donations that are slow coming in.”

“That would be useful,” he replied. “There’s talk, you know, that you’re ... uhh ... not as active as you used to be in the church.”

“I’ll lead the prayer meeting next Wednesday. Promise. I love you.” It was not entirely a lie. Her husband was not a bad man — but he was sedentary and unimaginative. She would have gone mad had she not found a way to carve out a slice of independence.

“I love you too, Maggie.”

She bought a guidebook and read about Greece. It sounded enchanting and she was truly interested in Paul and his travels two thousand years earlier to promulgate the new religion of Christianity. She asked Dorothy, “Do I need to come back to the U.S. on the airplane with you?”

The president thought a moment. “No. Once we put all the members of the group on an airplane home your job is done.”

“Then, I’ll go — and I’ll plan to stay on for a few days to visit one or two of the islands. They sound wonderful.”

Maggie was on pins and needles for the whole ten days of the visit to Greece. She dealt with carping, tardiness, diarrhea, homesickness, and penny-pinching. Most of the women were congenial, but she had been chained to a few who were perennially unhappy.

“I never promised you a rose garden,” said Dorothy as the group waited in the international airport in Athens for the early morning flight to return to the United States.

“I hope they all enjoyed the trip.” Maggie said cautiously.

“You did splendidly. Nobody died. None of them got thrown in jail, or lost, or in a fistfight.”

“Thank God.” Maggie looked up at the sky. “God, I meant that.”

“How long will you stay?”

“I have plane reservations to leave for home in five days. Today, I’m taking a flight to one of the islands.” The prospect of being on her own in a foreign country frightened her, but she was resolute. “I will do this,” she said to herself.

“Best of luck. I’ll need you to audit our books when you get back.” said Dorothy.

The island of Skiathos was her destination. The guidebook said its only village oozed charm, the beaches were good, and the island was not overcrowded as the airport was adequate only for small airplanes.

Her flight got her to Skiathos mid-morning and she caught a bus from the airport into the village. She had made a reservation in a small and inexpensive hotel, choosing to stay in town rather than at one of several luxurious beach hotels dotted around the island. It was hot and she felt conspicuous on the bus. Everybody else, mostly young Europeans, was wearing shorts and light-weight cotton shirts or blouses. She wore a skirt that reached below her knees and a long-sleeved blouse. She felt like a refugee from a tent revival.

She got off the bus at the main plaza and searched out her hotel, carrying her suitcase down a maze of narrow, cobbled streets and up steep, stair-stepped walkways. Her hotel was old and inconspicuous, three stories high, of whitewashed native stone with blue shutters. A purple bougainvillea curved around the signpost next to the front door. In a narrow interior was the front desk. She checked in with a friendly older man who spoke good English. Her room was small, a double bed with an end table and lamp, a chair and dressing table, and a tiny bathroom with shower. The room opened through double doors onto a balcony that looked out over a sapphire-blue sea and low, stone buildings so white they hurt the eyes to see. It was hot. The hotel was not air conditioned.

She shook off the fatigue of ten days of stress and decided to take a walk and have lunch before an afternoon siesta. She took off her skirt, blouse, and panties and packed them away and put on her bikini bottom. This was the first bikini she had ever owned. It was modest as bikinis go. She put on a pair of shorts over the bikini bottom Then she took her bra off and replaced it with the bikini top. Her small breasts had more than enough room. “I should have been more attentive when I tried this on,” she said to herself. “The cups are too large.”

“I’m almost pretty,” she thought, looking at herself in the mirror. She ran her fingers through her hair to jumble her severe hair style to look more like she was on holiday, donned a pair of flip-flop sandals, and away she went -- nervous but excited.

The Plakes beach was a ten minute walk from her hotel. It was small and pebbly, falling off in rock ledges to crystal clear water below. Pine trees shaded the margins. A dozen women and an equal number of men were sunbathing on the rocks or swimming. Most of the women were topless. Some of them had breasts burned as brown as leather; others ranged in color from sunburned red, to rosy pink, to as white as a winding sheet. Maggie guessed that she could tell how long the women had been in Greece by the color of their exposed breasts. Hers, beneath her bikini top, which hung loosely on her, had never seen the sun and were shockingly white. She wasn’t yet brave enough to reveal them to the world. She sat down on a rock.

“Well, Sheila, fancy meeting you again.” A young, handsome man sat down on the rock with her. He set his backpack down beside them. He was wearing only shorts. He was of medium height, well-muscled, and bronzed from the sun.

“Have we met?”

“I said hello to you when you got off the bus.”

“Oh, okay, if you say so. But my name is not Sheila. It’s —”

He interrupted her. “Sheila will do. I’m Rory. Skiathos is a fantasy. As are we.”

She giggled. “That’s very profound. Rory? Are you British?” His accent was not American.

“You know how to wound a man. I’m Australian.”

“Sorry.”

“And you’re American, Sheila?”

“Yes.” She looked him over closely. He had a pleasant smile. He didn’t seem threatening. She had day-dreamed of meeting a nice man on Skiathos. He was almost a boy.

“How about a swim, Sheila? You look uncomfortable in all those clothes.” His eyes focused on her chest.

She looked down. Her bikini top gapped open. He was peering at her exposed breast. “The barely seen is more interesting than the obvious,” he commented, nodding toward the topless women laying on the rocks.

She blushed and tucked her breast back under the fabric. “That sounds like something Plato might have said.”

“Who?”

“An old Greek.” She looked up at the sun. “It’s too hot and bright for me to get into the sun and swim. I’d get sunburned.”

They continued chatting amiably. He asked, “May I invite you to lunch? Dutch treat? I’m a bit short of the ready, but I know a good cheap restaurant.”

“I’m also on a tight budget. Very tight.” It seemed advisable not to give him any illusions that she was rich. She had read about “kamakis,” handsome young men on the Greek Islands who ensured that wealthy older women had a memorable vacation -- for a price.

“I can pay my own way,” he assured her. He pulled a t-shirt out of his backpack and put it on and shouldered his back pack. “Let’s go. The restaurant is nearby.”

“Lead on, Rory,” she said.

“Righto, Sheila.”

They strolled to a restaurant on a cobbled street with outside tables shaded by a grapevine growing on an overhead trellis. They ate Greek salad and grilled octopus soaked in olive oil and bread with a crunchy crust and drank a large bottle of beer each. Then, chatting amiably, they each drank another bottle of beer. He told her about himself. He was 25, from Perth, and on holiday in Europe. He had been in the islands for two weeks. He was nearly out of money. She didn’t ask him what his real name was, nor did he ask her real name. She was wearing her wedding ring.

Maggie felt woozy after the second beer. She yawned. “I can’t stay awake. I need to take a nap.” She hoped this was not the end of their relationship.

“May I escort you to your hotel?” he asked. “That is truly a fetching top,” he added. Her bikini top was gapping again.

“I need to buy one that fits.” She tucked her breasts in.

“I need a nap too. I’ve been sleeping on the beach for the last two nights. Beneath a pine tree. A money problem. I didn’t sleep very well.” He yawned. He paid half the bill for lunch with a grimace and looked at her with beseeching eyes. “That sand is awfully hard.”

She laughed. “Oh, all right. I get the hint. Do you want to nap in my room?

“Thank you for asking. I’ll reward your kindness by showing you the town tonight. If you pay for the beer.”

“Well, perhaps ... but first a nap.

“I’m up for that.”

They walked back to her hotel, rubbing shoulders companionably in the narrow streets. Maggie dropped off her money and passport in the hotel safe and made a point of introducing Rory to the old man at the front desk — just in case he was something other than a pleasant, charming boy. She led him up the stairs to her room. She opened the doors onto the balcony.

“This is home,” she said. “We can share the bed -- but no hanky panky.”

The room was hot. She looked at herself in the mirror, and wiped away rivulets of sweat between her breasts. “I need a tan.”

She lay down on the bed, put a pillow beneath her head, yawned, and stretched, He took his t-shirt off and joined her, their bodies touching on the narrow bed.

“You know,” he mused, “You remind me of my Sunday school teacher when I was twelve years old.”

“Because I’m old? Old fashioned?” She was upset. Was her true character so easily perceived?

“No, of course not, I was in love with that Sunday school teacher. Why do you think I noticed you?”

“I wondered about that.” He didn’t answer; he was already asleep.

When she woke the sun was low in the sky and it was cooler in the room. Rory was in the shower. He came out with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Hi, Sheila. Sleep well?”

He sat down beside her on the bed. She stretched luxuriously and her breasts popped out of her bikini top. She reached to cover them, but he caught her hand in his. “May I?” he asked politely.

She thought. “Do I dare?” She held his hand for a long moment and looked into his eyes. She had a moment of fear mixed with anticipation. He smiled. She moved his hand to her bare breast.

He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I take it that is a ‘yes.’ Don’t be frightened. I won’t hurt you.” He laughed. “It might even be fun.”

He massaged her nipple. She didn’t protest. Her breasts were so small they had nearly disappeared when she arched her back, her posture stiff and tense, but her nipples were large, erect, and dark brown. He kissed a nipple. “That tit is dry. It needs moisture.”