Chapter 2

Kyle's family was not quite as devout in their worship of The Lord as the Isaacson family, and did not actually attend church every single Sunday. They had pretty much degenerated to the point where they only attended on special days such as Easter and Christmas (and, truth be told, they had been prone to missing one or the other of those in recent years). What this meant was that Kyle was still sound asleep at 8:30 the next morning, the only day of the week he could linger in bed as long as he pleased.

The ringing of his cellular phone awakened him perhaps two hours sooner than he would have regained consciousness naturally. His eyes opened and his hand shot out from beneath the covers, groping across his nightstand, nearly knocking over his alarm clock before finally finding it. He pushed the "talk" button with his thumb without even bothering to look at the screen and see who was calling him.

"Yeah?" he grunted, unsure if he was even talking into the mouthpiece or not.

"Kyle?" whispered the voice of Samantha. "Oh, my God, the worst thing has happened."

This served to wake him up considerably. They had never had intercourse, so she could not be pregnant, so there was only one other possible worst thing she could be talking about. "Your parents found out about last night?" he asked slowly.

"My mom did," she whispered to him. "She knows everything."

A burst of adrenaline went shooting through his body. "Everything?" he squeaked. "You mean... everything?"

"Yes," she said. "She found a ripped button on my blouse when she was going through the laundry last night. And then... and then... she found... you know... a stain."

"I thought you cleaned it off with the ginger ale," he nearly accused.

"I did," she said, somewhat defensively. "But there was another one on the leg of my pantyhose. And there was... well... a smell to the pantyhose. The smell of lust, my mother called it."

"Holy shit," he said softly, adrenaline now flooding him. The last vestiges of sleep left like a rat from a sinking ship. "What did you tell her? Did you come up with something?"

She paused for a while, almost long enough for him to think the connection had been dropped. Finally, she said, "I told her the truth."

He couldn't believe his ears. She had told her the truth? The truth? Was she insane? Teenagers never told their parents the freaking truth! He was unsure how to even respond to her.

She seemed to sense this. "I'm sorry," she said. "I had to. She knew, Kyle. She knew!"

"Jesus, Sam..."

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain," she barked at him. "I had to confess my sins to her. It's the first step in repentance."

"Repentance? Holy Christ, Sam. You..."

"Stop taking the Lord's name in vain," she nearly yelled this time, tears in her voice. "You're only making it worse."

He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself, trying to figure out how to deal with a girl in the midst of religious mania. "Okay," he said at last. "So she knows. What did she do about it? Did she... you know... tell your father?"

"Not yet," Samantha said. "She said she hasn't decided on that yet. She said she has to pray on it first, to let the Heavenly Father guide her."

Kyle couldn't help but roll his eyes upward. Of all the girls in the world to hook up with, he had to pick the one from a family of religious whack jobs. "So while she's praying on it, what happens? Are you grounded? Did she forbid you from seeing me?"

"No, nothing like that yet," she said. "After she heard me tell what had happened she asked... you know... a bunch of questions."

"A bunch of questions?"

"To get... uh... the details about what we did."

"Jesus," Kyle whispered, letting his head slump down.

Samantha let his blasphemy pass this time.

"Anyway, after that, she told me she was going to pray on it and then sent me to bed. She hasn't said a thing to me yet this morning but I can tell something's strange about her. She's staying home from church today and she never does that. She told Dad she was feeling a little under the weather."

"Well, at least she hasn't told him yet," he offered weakly.

"Yeah... yet," she said. "Listen, I have to go now. We're gonna be leaving for church in a few minutes. I just wanted to let you know what happened."

"Okay," he said. "Thanks, Samantha. And no matter what happens, I still liked what we did last night."

She didn't return his sentiment. She simply told him goodbye and broke the connection.

He set his phone back down and lay back on the bed, his head reeling. "What a fuckin' mess," he said.

Twenty minutes later, he was still laying there, staring up at the ceiling, trying to come to grips with everything that had happened in the past twelve hours. What would Samantha's mother do? What would happen if she told Samantha's dad? What would happen if they told his parents? While their reaction would probably not be quite as extreme as the Isaacson's, his mom and dad would be considerably less than thrilled to find out their son was engaging in the precursors to pre-marital sex. And, since he was nineteen years old and in his sexual prime, the overriding thought that kept occurring to him was: had this incident destroyed his chances of ever having sex with Samantha?

Kyle was still a virgin himself. Though the girls had liked him back in high school, none had ever consented to do anything more than give him a few kisses, usually on the cheek. He was one of those boys they'd declared "too nice" to have sex with. They would keep their relationships on a friendship level with him while boffing every buffoon with a nice car and an impressive set of biceps. Samantha was his first real girlfriend, the first girl he had ever French kissed, the first whose breasts he had fondled, his number one prospect for finally shedding the stigma of virginity. He had come so close, had worked so hard to get to the point he had been at last night. Was it all destroyed now?

His cell phone began to ring again. He quickly snatched it up, looking at the display and saw it was showing Samantha's cell phone number. She was calling him back. Did she have good news or bad news? Was she breaking up with him as part of her repentance?

He pushed the button and put the phone to his ear. "Sam?" he said. "What happened? Did you stay home from church?"

"This is Mrs. Isaacson, Kyle," a steely voice replied. "I'm the one who stayed home from church."

Another burst of adrenaline went shooting through his body. Oh shit, he thought to himself. "Um... oh... uh... hi, uh... Mrs. Isaacson," he stammered. "How are... uh... how are you today?"

"My soul is in turmoil, Kyle," she told him.

Her soul was in freaking turmoil? Jesus! How was someone supposed to respond to that? "I'm uh... sorry to hear that, Mrs. Isaacson."

"You and I need to have a talk, Kyle," she said.

"A talk?" he said weakly. "Now? Um... about what?"

"You know what we need to talk about. I just finished looking through Samantha's call log on her phone. She called you this morning, about twenty minutes ago in fact. I'm sure she told you about the conversation she and I had last night."

"Oh, that," he said, his mind desperately trying to think of a way to get out of this conversation. "Well, uh, look... It's, you know, not as bad as you think."

"You led my daughter into sin," she said simply. "I need to talk to you about it. I want you to come over to my house, Kyle. We need to talk about this."

"Over to your house?" he squeaked. "I can't really do that right now. I have to..."

"I expect you here in the next thirty minutes," she said. "If you're not, I will be contacting the police."

"The police?"

"The police," she confirmed. "Have you forgotten that you are nineteen years old and that Samantha is seventeen? While you did not engage in actual intercourse with my daughter-thank the Heavenly Father for that-you did engage in a sex crime with a minor. I will have you arrested, and I will push and fight for the maximum penalty if you are not standing before me in the next thirty minutes. Do I make myself clear, Kyle?"

Holy shit! In all of his speculating about worst-case scenarios over the past twenty minutes, the possibility of police and legal involvement had not even crossed his mind. Would she really do that? Was what he had done really illegal? The answer to both of those questions, he feared, was yes. "Uh, yeah," he finally said. "You make yourself very clear, Mrs. Isaacson."

"Then I'll be seeing you soon?"

"Yes, I guess you will."

"Very well," she said. A second later, the connection broke.

Kyle took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. It didn't really work. Finally, he got out of bed and began to get dressed.

He pulled up in front of the Isaacson house twenty-three minutes later. As he walked up the front sidewalk, he felt like a man walking up the scaffolding to his execution. He stood before the doorway for a few moments, his finger poised over the doorbell button, afraid to ring it. Finally, figuring he might as well get this over with, he pushed it, hearing the faint chiming of Amazing Grace playing from inside.

The door opened and Mrs. Isaacson stood there, her expression stern. She was dressed as usual, in a calf-length skirt and a sleeved blouse. Today the skirt was black and the blouse was white. One difference that Kyle vaguely noted through his fear was that she was that she was not wearing pantyhose, something he had never seen her or Samantha do before. He noticed this only because the endlessly horny part of his mind-the part that apparently didn't even shut down when one was going to one's doom-liked the way her lower legs looked.

"Come in, Kyle," Mrs. Isaacson said, standing aside and allowing him entry.

"Thank you," he mumbled, more out of reflex than anything. He followed her in and she led him to the family room, a tastefully decorated portion of the house that contained fashionable furniture, a large screen television, and, of course, a leather-bound Book of Mormon on the coffee table.

"Have a seat," she said, pointing to the couch.

He did as asked and she sat down next to him, a respectable distance away. She continued to look at him, her expression now featureless. He remained silent, waiting for her to initiate the conversation.

"I must say," she said, "that I'm very disappointed in you, Kyle. Very disappointed."

He cast his eyes downward. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Isaacson," he told her. "I guess things... you know... got a little out of control last night."

Her gaze sharpened a little. "A little out of control?" she asked. "Is that what you call it? You take my daughter out after work and park in a dark place with her. You engage in forbidden sexuality with her there. You bring her home with her blouse ripped over her bosom, her body stinking of the smell of lust, and with a semen stain on her pantyhose. She then proceeds to lie to me with a straight face, telling me she went out with you to an ice cream parlor. Is that what you call a little out of control?"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, unsure what else to say. What did this woman want from him?

"I like you, Kyle, I really do," she said. "That's why I fought so hard with my husband to permit Samantha to continue dating you. I thought you were a very nice boy from a good family and that, if things progressed that far, you would eventually make a good husband for her. Of course, that would only have happened if you'd agreed to become a member of the Mormon Church, but you seemed a moral enough person to respect that. Now, I'm not so sure about your morality. Is this how Baptists are raised?"

"No, Ma'am," he said, ashamed. "My parents raised me better than this. I sinned with Samantha last night and I know it."

Her eyes softened the tiniest bit. "I'm very glad to hear you say that," she said. "Are you sincere?"

He nodded, only partially lying to her. After all, he had been brought up in a religious family and he knew that what he had been pushing Samantha to do was wrong in the eyes of the Lord.

"I believe you," she said softly. "Are you prepared to redeem yourself in the eyes of your Heavenly Father? To atone for your sin?"

"Yes," he said. "I am."

She smiled a little, a smile that seemed just a little out of place on her face, although he could not quite put his finger on why.

"Okay then," she said. "The first step on the road to redemption is confession. I want you to tell me exactly what you and Samantha did last night, from beginning to end."

"You want me to... to... tell you?" he asked, his eyes widening.

"To confess," she said, scooting a little bit closer and turning her body more towards him. "I want to know what you did to lead my daughter into this temptation, and to know what she did to encourage it. Now remember, I've already heard the story from her. Don't lie to me."

He swallowed nervously. Just what the hell was going on here? She wanted to hear the details of their encounter? Why? Was it just so she could confirm what Samantha had told her? To see if there were any details she had left out?

"Mrs. Isaacson," he said. "I'm not sure I should. You know? I mean, what Samantha and I did was kind of private."

"What you did was a sin," she said sternly. "And confession is how you begin to absolve yourself. Now lets start with whose idea it was to go park behind the store instead of going to the ice cream parlor. Was it your idea?"

He sighed, feeling like a trapped animal. "Yes," he said. "I suggested it right after she got done calling you."

"And did she agree to go with you right away?"

He shook his head. "No, I had to kind of talk her into it."

"How did you do that?"

"You know? Just by talking?"

She scowled. "What did you say to her?"

Christ, this was getting deep. "Um. I told her that I really liked kissing her and that I wanted to do it some more."

"So you two had kissed in a passionate manner before?"

He nodded. "A couple of times."

"And you did this despite the fact that the handbook on dating I gave you at the start of your relationship with Samantha specifically forbids French kissing?"

He gulped. "Yes, Ma'am."

"And do you remember why it forbids this method of passionate kissing to those who are unmarried?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Because you might be overcome by lust." Despite his fear and shame, he was forced to congratulate himself for saying this with a straight face.

"That's right," she said, her expression softening again. "And is that what happened to you and Samantha?"

"That's what happened," he said. "We were overcome."

"When you were parked in the car and you were kissing her, sticking your tongue in her mouth, feeling her tongue in your mouth, what happened to your body?"

"To my body?" he asked.

She looked down at his crotch pointedly. "You know what I mean," she said.

He blushed scarlet. "Well, you know. The usual thing."

"The usual thing?" she said. "Are you trying to say that you got an erection?"

His blush deepened. "Yes, Ma'am," he said. "I guess I did."

"And once you were erect, you had the desire for release, did you not?"

"Um, yeah," he muttered. "I suppose I did."

"So what did you do next?" she asked.

"Well, we kissed some more," he said.

"And where were your hands during this time?"

"They were, um, on her waist, I think."

"Show me," she said.

He paused for a second. "Show you?"

"Come here, closer to me," she said. "I want you to put your hands on me where you put them on her."

Kyle wasn't sure he had heard her correctly. "Ma'am?" he said.

"Its okay," she said. "I'm sure my old, married body isn't going to tempt you into lust. I just want to see how you were touching her."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I'm trying to understand how you led her into temptation," she said. "It will help me instruct her and my other daughters on how to avoid it in the future. Now come here please."

Reluctantly, he scooted forward, his mind trying to find sense in what she had said. When his legs were next to hers, he turned towards her. Awkwardly he reached out with trembling hands and placed them demurely on her waist, just above the hips. This was more or less where they'd been with Samantha the night before, although not with near the grip.

"I think you were probably holding her a little tighter than that, weren't you?" she asked.

"Yes, Ma'am," he agreed. He tightened up his grasp a bit, so he could feel her curves beneath her blouse. She was softer than Samantha, he found. Soft in a motherly way. Despite the strangeness and the adrenaline of the situation, he felt a burst of sexual arousal beginning. His penis stiffened up just the smallest bit, a little blood starting to fill it.

"And while you were kissing her," Mrs. Isaacson said, her voice a little softer now, "your upper body was pushed up against her, correct?"

"I suppose," he mumbled.

"Show me."

"You mean... do it?"

"Yes," she said, putting her hands up on his shoulders.

This was getting weirder by the second. Nevertheless, he leaned forward, pushing his upper body into hers. His face came to within inches of hers and he felt the push of her ample breasts against his chest. Her arms came around his back and her fingernails made a slight scratching on his skin. His penis was now definitely interested in what was going on. The blood began to fill it more rapidly. He tried to will it back down before it got big enough to notice but it was having none of that.

"You were touching each other inside the strike zone," Mrs. Isaacson whispered to his face. He felt her breath against his lips and nose. It smelled sweet. Like mint. "That, too, is specifically forbidden, is it not?"

"Yes," he answered, his voice not quite steady.

"Do you see why?" she asked. "Do you see how it incites lust? How it makes you long to do other things? To strive for release of your sexual energy in an inappropriate way?"

"Yes," he said again, squirming a little, trying to keep his penis from bulging out.

"You touched her leg next, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I guess I did."

"How did you get your hand there?"

"Well, I just put it there," he told her.

"Show me."

"You mean... ?"

"Show me," she repeated, her tongue now sliding out and licking across her upper lip for the briefest of instances.

What the hell was going on here? Surely not what he thought was going on here. While pondering that, he did as he was told. He brought his left hand down and set it on her knee, which was still covered by her skirt.

"Samantha said your hand came down on her bare knee," she said.

"Uh... well... it did," he said. "But uh... her dress was kind of... you know... pulled up a little."

"And who pulled it up?"

"Well... I did."

"Show me how you did it, Kyle. Don't go changing things."

He repeated his maneuver, performing it as he did the night before. His hand dropped to her leg below the hem of her skirt, near her upper shin. He then slid it slowly upward, his fingertips caressing her smooth flesh, the back of his hand pushing the skirt up her legs as it went. Kyle's breathing picked up a few notches as he did this, more so than it had when he'd done it to Samantha the night before. He was touching Mrs. Isaacson's bare flesh instead of her pantyhose. And she was a married woman nearly twice his age. His penis was now at full staff, standing proudly, bulging out of his pants in a most noticeable fashion.