Chapter 17: Off to Church

“Oh, I do love you in that outfit, Jessie. You look just so lovely. Those colours just really seem to suit your lovely complexion.”

Jessie Harper looked at herself in the mirror on her dresser as her mother stood behind her. Both women were dressed and ready to head off to church for the morning. Jessie smiled at her mother’s reflection as she made the final adjustments to her skirt and blouse then stepped into a very elegant pair of red and white high-heeled shoes. Those shoes matched the colours and patterning of Jessie’s red and white knee length skirt and her red and white blouse with puffed sleeves.

“Thanks mom. You look great yourself” responded Jessie after a brief pause.

Jessie gave her mother a quick hug then started heading down the stairs to get into the car. Glenda Harper didn’t follow behind immediately and managed to pull Jessie up short when she asked about Jessie’s clothes that she found in the dryer in the garage.

“Oh, crap!” muttered Jessie quietly to herself. Jessie had meant to get up early and retrieve her dried clothes from the dryer and get them back to her room before her mother found them and started asking questions. Somehow she had completely forgotten and felt really uncomfortable about the possibility of now lying to her own mother - but there was no way that she was going to tell her the truth about anything that had happened just yesterday afternoon.

“Um ... oh ... those clothes ... yer ... well ... um...”

Jessie was fumbling around as she tried to formulate a convincing reply.

“Well ... you see ... um ... you see it was so hot yesterday afternoon that Kate started messing around with the garden sprinkler and Paul, her brother, was also home and he ... he sort of pushed us both into the water so ... so ... we both got all soaked and Kate let me use some of her dry clothes when it was time to come home.”

Jessie Harper did not turn around to look at her mother as she spoke but just stared at herself in another mirror on the landing. As she was looking at herself and replying to her mother’s questions she suddenly had a very brief thought flash through her mind. It was a thought that lasted the mere briefest of seconds but the legacy it left in the young girl’s mind in that one sliver of time was indelible.

As the fourteen year old girl was formulating her slightly less than truthful reply she could see Kate, Paul and their parents standing behind her and all still in the nude. That momentary vision caused her to ask herself a rather disturbing question...

“What would it be like to go to church and sing in the choir NOT in this outfit - beautiful as it was - but completely naked? What would it be like to enter through the church doors in the nude and sing - still in the nude - to an audience of several hundred people?”

That question flashed in and out of Jessie’s mind in a split second but regardless of that fact it still left a very disturbing feeling deep within her young teenage mind.

Jessie’s mother knew nothing of Jessie’s thoughts and seemed to be satisfied with her daughter’s response and so the two set off to church in Mrs Harper’s car - just like they did every Sunday morning - only this time it seemed just slightly quieter than what was usual.