Chapter 28: A Stray

March 8, 2002, On the road from Rutherford, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Steve

Tabitha and I had left the Star Light Motel just before 9:30am after a complete reenactment of our first time, starting with me undressing her and ending with me cumming in her mouth. We’d showered, dressed, packed, and checked out after that.

“I want to get a few things from home,” she said as I backed out of the parking spot.

“What about your parents?”

“Dad is at school, teaching, and Mom will be at her women’s Bible study. It’s every Friday at 9:00am at the pastor’s house.”

She directed me to her house, which wasn’t far from where Vickie and Martin lived, and I drove past, with Tabitha checking for the car. It wasn’t there, so I turned around, drove back, and pulled into the driveway. Tabitha dashed inside and I took the opportunity to call Kara, who I hoped was in her office.

“Hi!” Kara exclaimed when she answered. “Did you have fun?!”

“I did, and I seem to have picked up a stray.”

Kara laughed, “And you’re bringing her here?”

“She needs to run away to Chicago for the same reason you did, Honey.”

“An arranged marriage?”

“For all intents and purposes. Would you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Get in touch with Hope and have her join us for dinner. If she has a date with Roger, see if they’ll both come.”

“Why?”

“I’m not the one to guide Tabitha out of her cage. I picked the lock, so to speak, but she needs Hope’s guidance. And possibly Sarah’s, but let’s start with Hope. I’d call her myself, but I know she’s in class, and I try to avoid answering calls when I’m driving.”

“What should I tell her?”

“That I met Tabitha Larson, and that Tabitha needs Hope’s wisdom and guidance.”

“They know each other?”

“Acquaintances via Bible Quizzing.”

Kara laughed softly, “A small world! OK. I’ll call her and see if she’ll come over this evening.”

“Thanks. I’ll call Jess in a couple of hours, because she should be at lunch. Same with Suzanne.”

“Where is Tabitha staying?”

“In a guest room until she figures out what to do. I’m going to make a few calls about getting her a job, which I’m sure I can do.”

“Samantha?” Kara inquired.

“Yes, but I’ll start with McCarthy, Jenkins, and Ferguson, then FJF Chicago, and the medical practice where Jolene works. I’ll try a few others, then go to Samantha.”

“Why not her first?”

“Because she’ll create a position as a favor, and I’d prefer that didn’t have to be the case. I’d hire Tabitha, but Liz would never allow it.”

“True. How was she?”

“Enthusiastic, once her libido was unleashed. Just like someone else I know!”

Kara laughed, “I can’t wait to meet her! How much does she know?”

“I gave her the outline this morning after she asked me to take her away from here.”

“She’s obviously not with you right now.”

“No, she’s in her house getting some clothes, her diary, and a few other things.

“I can see the next entry right now!” Kara teased. “Had my brains expertly fucked out and LOVE the taste of cum!”

“You are bad!”

“I know!” Kara declared. “See you soon!”

“I love you!” I declared.

“I love you, too!” Kara replied.

We said ‘goodbye’ and hung up, just as Tabitha hurried from the house. She put two bags in the back seat, then climbed into the passenger seat.

“I called in sick for the next two days,” she said. “I’ll call tomorrow to quit. Lou has someone who can cover my shifts.”

“OK,” I said.

I backed out of the driveway and headed for Route 50, which would take us to Milford and I-275.

“Have you thought about what you’ll say to the police?”

“That I decided to move to Chicago, and you were kind enough to take me in until I get on my feet. I can pay you rent, too. I’ve saved every penny I made working for Lou since I was sixteen.”

“No rent is necessary, unless you feel it is. I’d prefer you use your money for your security deposit on an apartment, along with furniture and all the other stuff you’ll need.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before.”

“You aren’t the first teenager to run away to join my circus! You aren’t even the first one from Rutherford!”

“Can I ask who?”

“Winter Manning, who used to work at Lou’s. But that was about six years ago.”

“How do you know Pastor Tim?”

“I met his daughter Vickie through Winter. And that’s how I met Sheriff Emmy.”

“Oh?”

“Your pastor accused me of raping Vickie, so Sheriff Emmy came to see me. After she spoke with Vickie, she declined to arrest me.”

“You had sex with her?”

“Vickie?”

“Wait! Sheriff Emmy, too?”

“Normally, I’d refuse to answer, but in this case, I think I should. Yes, to both. And THAT is why Sheriff Emmy suggested you get to know me.”

“She doesn’t like Pastor Tim at all.”

“Do you?”

“No, I guess not. He’s the one who made my dad and mom the way they are, and me the way I am ... well, was before we fucked.”

“I very, very much enjoyed myself,” I said.

“I had no idea,” Tabitha replied with a deep sigh. “No idea.”

I didn’t reply, just focused on the road, listening to the radio, the hum of the tires, and the growl of the German engine.

“What’s it like in Chicago?” she asked.

“You mean at my house? Or in general?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Well, at my house, you’ll find what amounts to a commune, with people coming and going, often spending the night, and sometimes having sex with me. As I said, my kids are aware, and think it’s perfectly normal. We actually have a second houseguest, who I didn’t mention, who is the son of a girl who was my best friend for ages and ages. She and her husband and their other son are in Sweden until the end of July, and her eldest son wanted to stay in Chicago.”

“Sweden? Why?”

“She’s a licensed Clinical Psychologist and is doing what amounts to a Fellowship for a year there, at my urging and arranging. When we get to Chicago, I’ll give you a copy of her book, which I think will be VERY eye-opening.”

Tabitha laughed, “More than putting your thing in my mouth after it had been between my legs?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Use the words I taught you, please.”

She blushed ever so slightly, “Putting your dick in my mouth after it had been in my pussy.”

“Good. The book is Smart Teens; Smart Choices and tells you everything you should know about sex and sexuality.”

“We were told never to read that book!” Tabitha declared. “They said it perverted God’s plan for our bodies and our lives.”

“Of course they did. I don’t intend this to be mean, but do you know how your body works in terms of getting pregnant? I mean, besides you telling me the man puts his thing between the girl’s legs and moves until he shoots his seed into her?”

“Uhm, no.”

“Fucking morons!”

“Who? Me?”

“No, but every adult who denied you information about your own body with the idiotic idea that would prevent you from having sex. I doubt it even deterred some of the teens in your church from having sex, let alone prevented them. Remember how you felt when we danced?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why ‘abstinence only’ leads to unintended pregnancies! Think what might have happened if you were with a guy from church you liked, hugged, and kissed.”

“Uhm, not the same thing!”

I chuckled, “Perhaps not in form, but in function! And with no thought to birth control. Do you know anything at all about birth control and getting pregnant?”

“You mean besides there are pills and some kind of thing a guy can use called a rubber? No. And only about his seed making you pregnant.”

“Then the book will be very helpful. It’ll discuss all the things we did and explain they’re ... well, you know what? I’d rather you read the book. And you should talk to Hope. She might be at dinner tonight.”

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“I opened the door to your cage last night,” I said. “Now it’s up to you to walk out and find your way in the world. I’m not in a position to do for you what I did for Kara.”

“Why?”

“Because last night and today were about fucking for the pure pleasure of it, not to begin a romantic relationship, or anything like it. If we do it again, it’ll be because we want to feel good, not because we love each other. We can be friends, but that’s the limit.”

“I don’t think friends do what we did!” Tabitha protested.

“My friends and I do. As I said, the real world is not anything like you think it is. Continuing on about my house, I have a large sauna, which we use naked as a family, and with friends. On some occasions, as many as thirty people have been in there naked.”

“What?! You have sex in there?!”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Yes, but not with thirty people! Being naked has zero to do with sex in our world. Sure, you are usually naked for sex, but nudity does not imply sex. As I said, our family uses the sauna naked together.”

“Wait! You mean kids and adults? Men and women and boys and girls?”

“Yes. Remember what Job said? ‘Naked I came into the world, naked I go out of the world’. Well, that’s our natural state. And I’m sure you remember what Genesis says — Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden and were not ashamed. They only became ashamed after they ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. So again, our natural state is to be naked.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

“But you do, and your experience is with fundamentalist Christianity, so I was showing from your tradition that what I do isn’t inherently wrong. It’s your pastors and parents who are wrong.”

“But Jesus and Paul taught...”

“Stop right there,” I interrupted. “Jesus is reported to have spoken about sex only a couple of times; Paul, on the other hand, seemed obsessed with it! While it’s true he was writing to object to what he felt was libertine behavior by the Galatians, it’s also true that he wrote about it in other places.”

“You really do know the Scriptures. I thought you were just saying that.”

“I’ll leave most of this to Hope and Kara, but after we get to Chicago, get one of my Bibles from my study and read Genesis 1:1 through 2:4; then Genesis 2:5 through the end of the chapter. Write out the order things are created in both stories and try to line them up. Here’s a hint — you won’t be able to.”

“Pastor Tim taught about that and said it’s just two tellings of the same story.”

“Pastor Tim is a moron,” I said. “It can’t be what he says, because of what he thinks about the Bible. There is no way to rectify the two accounts of Creation if you read them as literally true. Now, if you read them as myth, then you can absolutely say they are two tellings of the same story. That right there is sufficient proof that the fundamentalist, evangelical understanding of the Christian and Jewish Scriptures is wrong.”

“Myth? Like made up?”

“Let me ask you this — when Jesus taught in parables, did they have to be true? I mean, did there have to be ‘Good Samaritan’ or a ‘Prodigal Son’?”

“I suppose not.”

“But that doesn’t change the lesson, does it?”

“No.”

“Then Genesis being ‘myth’, or to use a word you’re more comfortable with, ‘a parable’ wouldn’t change the lessons we’re supposed to learn from it, would it?”

“I guess not, no.”

“Congratulations. You are no longer a fundy.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. Well, assuming you believe what you just said to be true.”

“Hmm...”

I let her stew on that for a bit, merging onto I-275, heading for I-74, which would take us to Indianapolis. As I drove, I decided on the best course of action to head off any trouble with law enforcement. I’d stop at the Rest Area in Indiana and call Emmy and let her know what had transpired. She’d have to follow-up, of course, and I’d still get the visit from law enforcement, but she’d know what had happened and could discuss it with Tabitha’s parents and Tim Saddler, and hopefully keep them from going completely off the deep end. It was probably a forlorn hope, but it was worth a try.

“Tell me about Chicago,” she said as I passed the Tri-County Mall.

“It’s a big city,” I replied. “The greater Chicagoland area has about five million people, and it’s very diverse. Unlike Rutherford, which is mostly white with a small number of black families, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians make up about half the population of the city. I live in a very well-to-do neighborhood of Chicago, but there are also very, very poor neighborhoods.

“We have good public transportation with buses, the L, subways, and Metra, which is regular heavy rail. There are scores of museums and zoos, dozens of universities, uncountable restaurants, and just about any kind of store you can imagine, and some you probably can’t imagine, like the one that sells sex toys.”

“Sex toys?”

I chuckled, “I’ll leave that topic for you to explore with a future boyfriend.”

“Why not tell me?”

“Part of the joy of life is discovering things for yourself at the right time. You’ve spent nineteen years being told what to do and what to think. That needs to stop. You need to explore and ask questions so you can discover things for yourself. Learning to do that is the key to being a complete adult. You’re going to have complete freedom, just as my kids do, to decide who and what you are.”

“What I am?”

“Before about noon yesterday, you were Tabitha Larson, fundamentalist Christian ‘good girl’, who was waiting for Mark to return from California so that her dad could give her to Mark as a possession. None of that is true today. That means you get to reinvent yourself in whatever way you want. And you get to decide what you want to do. If you want to wait until you’re married before you have sex again, that’s up to you. It’s also up to you if you want to have several lovers.”

Tabitha laughed softly, “I don’t think I could wait until I married.”

“I suspect not!” I chuckled. “And to answer your question, yes, I want to be with you again.”

“Me, too! I can’t believe how it made me feel and I want to feel that way again.”

“A very common response, especially amongst those who aren’t aware of how pleasurable it is before they first do it. Back to Chicago — do you know what kind of job you want?”

“I, uhm, hadn’t really thought about it. All I’ve ever done is wait tables.”

“Do you know how to type?”

“Yes. And take shorthand. That was part of the non-college-bound program at Harding High.”

“Along with Home Ec?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. And shop class for guys.”

“Have you thought about going to college?”

“No. If I had, it would have been a Bible college, so I could learn to be a pastor’s wife.”

Another thing Tabitha had in common with Kara. That had been Alan’s plan for Kara, and would have wasted Kara’s calling.

“College is a possibility, but even a State school in Illinois is expensive, and you wouldn’t qualify for in-state tuition until you established residency.”

“Did you have some suggestions?”

“I have a lot of friends who I can call, and they’d have jobs ranging from working in the mailroom to being a secretary or receptionist, or doing what used to be called the ‘typing pool’ but now use WordPerfect or Word. How well do you know how to use a computer?”

“Only for word processing and spreadsheets. I know Word and Excel, and I’ve used PowerPoint for making slides.”

“That’s actually a huge advantage,” I said. “It’ll help get you a secretary job, for sure.”

“What about working for your company?”

“I’m not allowed to hire any more girls I’ve slept with. My attorney is concerned about that.”

“How many have you hired?”

“I’d guess a dozen or so, I haven’t kept close track.”

“Just, wow! And you’ve really gone to bed with two hundred girls?”

“Around that, yes.”

“I don’t understand how your wife, I mean Jessica, can agree to that.”

“You are free to talk to Kara, Jessica, Suzanne, Natalie, who’s basically a steady girlfriend, and anyone else you want. They’ll be happy to discuss it with you.”

“You seem evasive.”

“Because I am, to some extent. I want you to hear those things from the people who can answer them, not from me.”

“OK.”

We reached the Rest Area, and I pulled in and parked. Tabitha and I went to the facilities, and as was usually the case, I was finished before my female companion. I walked outside and dialed Sheriff Emmy’s mobile number.

“Sheriff Nelson,” she answered.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s Steve. You owe me a thousand bucks.”

“A thousand ... no way! You’re so full of shit I’m sure your eyes are brown instead of their normal gray!”

“Sheriff, I suspect that sometime around 6:00pm tonight, but at the latest tomorrow morning, you’re going to get a missing person report for Tabitha Larson. She’s safe, and she’s on her way to Chicago with me.”

“Bullshit! She’ll be working at Lou’s if I go check.”

“You do that, and call me back,” I said.

“Jesus!” she gasped. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack. Drop by the Star Light and ask to see the registry for last night. My name will be there as a ‘double’.”

“Holy fuck! How?”

“It’s your fault! You told her to get to know me. I tried to brush her off, but she was nothing if not persistent.”

“Jesus, Steve! Her parents and Saddler are going to come gunning for you!”

“She’s nineteen. They can, and I mean this in the most offensive way possible, go fuck themselves. When you get the report, tell them where she is, humor them by calling the FBI, and I’ll be waiting at home with Tabitha and a pair of attorneys.”