Chapter 49: Confrontation

February 5, 1983, West Monroe, Ohio

"This is heavenly," Janey sighed.

She was sitting in front of me, leaning back, with my arms around her, in a tub full of warm water and lavender bubble bath.

"I could get really used to this," I agreed.

"When you finally get paid a decent amount, we'll build a big house with a shower and tub like this."

"And a sauna," I said.

"Who has a sauna?"

"Katy's parents."

Janey laughed, "Did you?"

"Just some fooling around, but not that."

I ran my hands up along her slick stomach and cupped both of her firm, full breasts.

"I love how slick your skin is and how this feels," I said.

"I love you doing that," Janey sighed.

I slid one hand down across her pubic hair and pressed a finger against the skin, which covered her clit and made small circles.

"Oh God, that feels good," she hissed. "Put it in me!"

I slid my finger down a bit and pressed it between her labia and into her silky folds.

"Yeah," she sighed. "Make me cum, Mike!"

It didn't take long to fulfill her request, and afterwards we sat quietly, enjoying the warmth of the water and the feel of our bodies together. When the water began to cool, we got out and took a hot shower to rinse off the suds, and Janey opened the drain on the tub. We had fun drying each other off, then left the master bathroom.

"Come on," she laughed, taking my hand.

"Uh, we should get dressed," I said.

"The drapes are shut! Come on!"

"You're crazy!" I protested but let her lead me downstairs.

"I've never denied that!"

She led me to the kitchen, where she got out fixings for sandwiches — bread, ham, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes — as well as pickles and chips. She directed me to where the cutting board and knives were, and I sliced the tomatoes while she put chips and pickles on plates.

"Your pickle is bigger," she teased, sliding the dill spear into her mouth.

"What's gotten into you today?" I asked with a grin.

"You! Three times so far!"

"You know what I meant!"

"I just felt like playing today. There's no risk of anyone coming home. Don't you like it?"

"I do. It's just a bit weird!"

Janey began assembling the sandwiches, and I rinsed off the knife and wiped off the cutting board.

"I think we need our first relationship rule," she said.

"What's that?" I asked.

"No clothes if we're alone. Period. You have to strip the moment you come in the door."

"Seriously?"

"Think about how exciting that would be! Just naked all the time around each other."

"It might get cold at times!"

"A fire in the fireplace, a soft rug, and blankets! Are you game?"

"If you mean am I the 'prey' and you're the 'predator', then yes, I'm 'game'!"

"Give me a break!" she laughed. "You MADE me chase you! I sent you every possible signal, and you ignored all of them!"

"Guilty as charged! Let's just say the time wasn't right."

"Well, I'm glad the time was finally right! Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Well, it's more an observation. When we were together on New Year's Eve, you kissed me when I still had some of your stuff in my mouth."

"Stuff?" I chuckled. "We're just about to sit down to lunch naked, and you call it 'stuff'?"

"What word would you prefer?" she smirked as she put the plates on the table.

"Ejaculate," I said piously as we sat down on towels she'd placed on the chairs.

Janey laughed, "Right! Sperm? Semen? Cum? Spunk? Jism?"

"Take your pick," I said evenly. "I believe all of those are common terms for ejaculate."

"Stop!" she laughed. "Or next time, I won't swallow first!"

I shrugged, "It's not like I wash my face or use mouthwash after I've had my tongue in you!"

"I was a bit surprised the first time, but if you're going to do that for me, I'm NOT going to complain! Pray, so we can eat!"

I gave the blessing, and we started eating.

"I still say this is strange," I chuckled after taking several bites of my sandwich.

"You don't like looking at my boobs while we're eating?"

"They are very nice to look at!"

"And just think," she laughed, waving her hand up and down, "all this can be yours if the price is right?"

"That one came to mind on New Year's Eve, but I felt it was a bit tacky."

"Because it would seem like you were paying for it?"

"According to my grandfather, men ALWAYS pay for it, one way or the other!"

"And YOU, Mr. Michael Peter Loucks, what do YOU say?"

"He's wrong," I said flatly. "He's absolutely wrong."

"Good decision," Janey smirked. "Now, finish your lunch, and you can have me for free!"

We quickly finished our lunch and then went up to Janey's room to fool around for an hour. When we finished, we showered and dressed, then cleaned up the house, including rinsing soap scum from the tub and putting soiled towels and sheets in the washing machine.

"I had fun today!" Janey said when she walked me to the door.

"Me, too!"

"I think I'm going to accept at Ohio State," she said. "I want to be closer to you than Cincinnati."

"If that's best for you, then do that."

"Gee, thanks," she said with a frown.

"And now you see why my sister calls me an idiot. I'm sorry. Yes, I'd very much like that."

"Better. See you at church?"

"Absolutely."

"If Tasha can't go out, I'm available."

"OK. I think you'll know by whether she comes to stand next to me. Well, if she does, then it's a 'yes' for sure. If she doesn't, I'll have to ask."

"You won't be at the reader's stand?"

"Only if I'm invited. That's true of any clergy who visit any parish, except for the bishop. Well, unless he's visiting a parish belonging to a brother bishop, then he has to be invited in advance. It's rare, except under special circumstances. Other than the annual meeting of the synod, a bishop isn't supposed to travel outside his diocese."

"I didn't know that."

"It's from the ancient canons. Technically, a priest can't leave his diocese without the permission of the bishop. The same is true for deacons. But generally, our bishops grant permission for vacations or visiting family."

"You don't have those rules?"

"No, and I won't as a subdeacon. I'll confer with Father Nicholas, but I don't need permission; for example, I let him know I'd be away this weekend."

"Things I didn't know!"

We hugged, exchanged a soft kiss, and I headed out to my car. I got into the Mustang and started the engine. While I sat waiting for the engine to warm up, I realized how close I'd come to totally messing up my relationship with Janey.

When I'd been with her on New Year's Eve, it had been about sex. Today, on the other hand, had been Janey's attempt to show me what married life with her might be like. I'd totally missed that until the very moment after I'd put my foot in my mouth when she'd said she was going to go to OSU. She was, in effect, staking HER claim in the same way Tasha was staking hers.

When the engine was warmed, I put the car in gear and pulled out of the driveway, heading towards April's house. As I drove, I recalled saying my options had narrowed, and they had, but the decision was becoming more difficult, and the choice was not the one I'd expected to have to make just six months earlier. And if history was any guide, the choice I'd have in a year's time might be very different.

I pushed those thoughts from my mind when I arrived at April's house. I backed into the driveway, parked, turned off the ignition, put the car in gear, and set the parking brake. I got out, locked the door, and walked onto the porch. I rang the bell, and April opened the door almost immediately.

"Hi, Mike!" she gushed, giving me a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Hi, April! How are you and Chastity?"

"Good. She's awake."

I took off my hat, gloves, and coat and hung them in the hall closet, and then we went into the living room where Chastity was in her playpen. April picked her up and handed her to me, and Chastity cooed as she always did when I held her.

"She really likes you," Mr. Nash said, coming into the room.

"Hi, Mr. Nash. She's a cute little kid."

"She is. April, I'm going to run some errands. I'll be gone for a few hours. You kids enjoy yourselves."

"Thanks, Dad!" April replied.

He left, and April and I went to sit on the couch.

"Not too subtle," I chuckled.

April smiled, "I'm pretty sure he thinks if he leaves us alone together, eventually we'll get together."

"As in, marry?"

She laughed softly, "Eventually, but I'm pretty sure he thinks the other thing has to happen first. He's OK with it. Well, with you being with me, anyway."

"April, something changed last week, something which is important."

"Oh?" she asked, suddenly nervous.

"I was tonsured and made a reader in church. On Holy Saturday, I'll be made a subdeacon. That means I can only marry someone who is truly Orthodox."

"What?! Why?"

"Why am I doing that? Or why is that a rule?"

"Both, I guess," she said, sounding very concerned.

"First, because my bishop asked me to, and there was no good reason not to say 'yes' to him. You know how I am about church. Those are what we call 'minor orders', which means that I'll do what I used to do in church here, plus a few additional things, and wear slightly different vestments. As to why I can't marry anyone who's not Orthodox, that's the rule for minor orders of the clergy. And you have to marry before you become a Deacon, which would be the next step after subdeacon because once you become a Deacon, you can't marry. In the end, all clergymen, no matter what their rank, have to have Orthodox wives."

"You mean not just go to church, but really believe all that stuff? Like with Mary and the wine changing to blood?"

I smiled, "You can argue with the Roman Catholics about transubstantiation. Orthodox simply say that it's a mystery which we cannot understand, and that the Eucharist is a symbol. But it's not like what Westerners mean when they use the word 'symbol', where it's just an empty representation. The symbol, for us, truly manifests the reality behind it. So, in the chalice, the bread, water, and wine manifest themselves as the body and blood of Christ. Some things are simply hidden from us, which is what we mean by mysteries."

"Do you believe the Bible is true?"

"That depends on what you mean by 'true'. If you mean, does it convey eternal truths about God, man, and the human condition? Then, yes, it's absolutely true. If you mean, is it literally true, word for word? No. That was never, ever its purpose. That's something the Protestants invented about the same time they removed books the Church had used for a millennium-and-a-half from the Bible! And they did so on their own personal authority, with no reference to what had been handed down from bishop to bishop from the beginning."

"They taught us that the Roman Catholic Church added books!"

"I'm sure they did teach you that, and if you go by when the Roman church declared which books were canonical, I can see how you could think that, even though that thinking is erroneous. That's a perversion of history. What one needs to do is look to what books were read in the churches from the time they were collected, and that includes all the stuff the Protestants discarded.

"The other thing to remember is that the Orthodox Church has no conflict with science; we never have. All science is when it's done properly, is categorization or observations of the world. God gave us our senses and gave us our minds to make use of those senses. And we do. But science can't say anything about God. Science has its domain. Philosophy has its domain. Logic has its domain. Theology has its domain. There is overlap between them, but, in the end, the Church, which is the bishops assembled with their flock, is authoritative on theology."

"And Mary? You worship her, and you worship idols!"

"No, I don't. Mary is revered, not worshiped. There's a difference. Is paying respect to the President or your pastor worship?"

"No."

"And neither is paying respect to Mary. The Bible says quite clearly that she is 'blessed among women', which I'd say is authoritative. And if you're thinking about the fact we ask her to pray for us, would you object to me asking you to pray for me?"

"No, of course not. But she's dead!"

"She died, or as we call it, 'fell asleep in the Lord'. We don't need any hokey ideas that she never died because we don't teach that the guilt of original sin is passed from generation to generation. What IS passed is mortality, and because we are mortal, we're prone to sin. But whether you accept what the Roman Catholics got wrong or what we teach, ALL of those who have died are alive in the Lord. They are 'the great cloud of witnesses' Paul spoke of.

"And that's where icons come in. They are there to tell us a story, which is why we say that they are 'written', not 'painted'. And those stories are important lessons on faith. In a sense, they are no different from stories in the Bible meant to teach important lessons of faith, such as Jesus' parables. An icon is a symbol and, like all true symbols, manifests the reality behind it. Kissing an icon is the same as kissing the person represented by the icon."

"That's worship!"

"I have a challenge for you," I said. "When Chastity is about eighteen months old, have your dad or sister give her a picture of you when you aren't in the room. I'll bet you anything you care to wager. Chastity kisses your picture at some point. Is she worshiping you? Or is she thinking that kissing the photo is kissing you?"

"But she's a baby!"

"So are we when it comes to our knowledge and understanding of God! Do you see how far apart we are? Even if I wasn't going to be ordained, we could never worship together because you reject everything I believe to be true. And before you respond that the same is true for me, that's never, ever been a secret. I asked you about church very early on. I didn't make a big deal about it, but in hindsight, I should have."

"So I'd have to go to church and believe all of that?"

"It's a lifetime commitment, April. It's not something that would ever change. And if you stopped going to church or wanted to go to another church, I'd be laicized. That means I'd be removed as clergy. That would be the end, too."

"The end?"

"You'd ruin my life in church by doing that, and I wouldn't be able to be with you ever again."

"That's nuts!"

I shrugged, "It's what I believe. It's what I've always believed."

"I hate you," she said in a quiet voice.

"Why? Because I was honest? Because I'm Orthodox?"

"Because you won't give me a fair chance because of your stupid church!"

"If that's how you feel, and you know what that means, which I'm sure you do, then you won't be surprised when I say 'goodbye' now and tell you I won't come back. I'll miss seeing Chastity, but I know where I'm not wanted."

"Get out!" she growled.

I turned and left the room. I got my hat, gloves, and coat from the front hall, put them on, and left the house. I got into my car, started the engine, and since it was still warm from the drive to April's house, I put the car in gear and pulled out of the driveway. I headed home, and after I parked the car, I went into the house.

"We didn't expect you for another hour or so," Mom said when I walked in.

"April and I had a spat, so I left. She's upset because I told her I can only marry an Orthodox girl. But that shouldn't be news to her because it was the thing that caused us to break up."

"She thought your visits were because you were interested in her, not her baby."

"Obviously. I could be friends with April, and I told her that. But she's been continually trying to seduce me."

Dad grimaced, "And here I thought she was a nice girl."

"She IS a nice girl!" I protested, with a hint of outrage in my voice. "She's sweet, wonderful, and will make a good wife for someone who doesn't have the kind of differences she and I have about church. Yes, she got pregnant at sixteen, but that doesn't make her a bad person! She's had sex with exactly one person. If that makes her not a nice girl, what does it make me?"

I'd almost said 'Mom', but I'd managed to say 'me', instead. But I was sure they both got the point.

"Mike," Mom cautioned.

"What? I'm seriously getting tired of the moralizing. I do not buy the idea that April is somehow ruined because she had a baby at seventeen. Honestly, if it weren't for the church issue, I could see trying to have a relationship with her, and if it worked out, adopting Chastity and treating her as if she were my own daughter. People make mistakes, Dad. That doesn't ruin them for life."

I knew I was becoming upset, and if I didn't walk away, it was going to get worse.

"I'm going upstairs. I'm going to rest for a bit, then go to Vespers."

I turned and walked away before either of them could answer. I walked up the stairs and down the hall to my bedroom. I shut the door, set the alarm just in case, then stripped down to my underwear and got into bed. I had just closed my eyes when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," I sighed.

I was happy to see Liz come in and shut the door behind her.

"You OK?" she asked.

"Just resting. Why?"

"I heard what you said to Dad. He and Mom are arguing."

"That's a change," I said. "He usually runs away like I do."

"You don't run away now!"