Chapter 10

Maryann woke up with a hangover. It wasn't from alcohol. Unlike the girls she had not summoned the strength to clean up before she passed out. Along with her mental anguish she felt unclean.

She'd over done it and felt remorse and contrition welling up. Sliding over the side of the bed onto her knees she lowered her face on her hands and prayed. She prayed for understanding and she prayed for forgiveness. She truly believed that the Vatican II document gave permission for self-stimulation; but it was intended for the relief of the carnal urges that would threaten the vows of chastity, not as some kind of hobby.

'I didn't make a vow of chastity, ' she reminded herself.

She could have; in some ways she wanted to. When she was ready to graduate from Holy Grace, Mother Superior had promoted the opportunity to stay; to intern as a novice. Her experience with Teresa and the urges that she fought over the three years afterward told her that she was not physiologically suited to the role. She chose a good catholic college and enrolled in a general course of study, always believing that she had missed her first calling, she searched for something else to be passionate about and never found it.

The church remained her anchor, and just as Christ intended her rock. It ate at her that she was unworthy to serve. She cursed the genes she'd been born with and prayed for understanding of why God had given her such a devout mind attached to a depraved body.

Near the end of her second year she'd met Donald Spencer at the church fund raiser. He was five years older and established in a local accounting firm. To her young inexperienced eye he looked like a rock. In some ways he was.

Out of his own need to serve he was volunteering his accounting skills and degree to the church's project. She became involved and they worked somewhat closely together for several months, often having coffee together when their chores were done. It might have been called dating in some circles. Romance was the logical outcome, and as day follows night, marriage.

Don was a good Catholic boy, and as it turned out even more inexperienced in the bedroom than her. Her experience was limited to the brief series of tutorials administered by one conniving novice. She wished she could tell him what she wanted, what she needed, but their relationship—him being the older and wiser, always taking the lead and making all the decisions had gelled early. By the time they were married it had solidified to stone.

Maryann didn't know it but it was a tribute to her sexual proclivity that she was able to derive as much satisfaction as she did from Don Spencer's inept lovemaking. As a young wife and soon there after mother she'd buried the knowledge of the pleasure her body was capable of; put it aside with all of the other hedonistic sinful activities of this world in which she also chose not to engage.

While Don was alive it was do-able—if just barely. When he died the torment started within a month and had reached the intolerable stage before Doctor Perez had provided divine relief. Not just relief but the possibility of a sustainable torment free life. That was all well and good but what about the other; the desire—'Oh God'—the need for sexual liaison with another person.

As she prayed the aroma of her night of excess rose from the sheets that were inches from her nose. She rose from her knees and stripped the bed completely tossing the sheets and pillow cases beside the laundry hamper she went into her bath suite and started filling the tub.

Next door Elizabeth Conrad was also running a bath. She had carefully disengaged herself from her sleeping daughter and was glowing from the progression of her relationship with Michelle. While she soaked in the tub she let her mind drift back to that summer at the cottage deep in the woods.

She lay there dreamily letting the memories heat her from the inside the way the water warmed her on the out. When tiny little Michelle slipped in to the frothy water Elizabeth opened her eyes and smiled at her daughter.

"How are you this morning honey?"

"A little bit sore," the girl answered putting her hand between her legs.

"It'll heal fast ... I have a douche you can use that'll speed things up too. How did your thing at the church go last night?""

Michelle gave the mother a fairly complete briefing on the Catholic Girls' Youth Group meeting. Beth listened actively, smiling and nodding as the teenager described the doctor's approach.

"I won't lie to you sweetheart, I was really tempted to tell you that you couldn't go. I was afraid that they'd fill your head with all kinds of fear and guilt about your sexuality that I would have to try to undo. I'm so glad I was wrong."

Briefing her mother on the experience in the church basement started the crampy feelings in her cookie which unfortunately was still sore. She had the urge to rub it but the stinging discouraged her.

"I'm getting hungry," her mother announced rising out of the bath bubbles.

The sight of her mom's nakedness caused the girl to put the pain aside long enough to give her coochie a couple of quick strokes, but the stinging spoiled it.

With a towel wrapped around her, her mother put a tube of ointment on the tub deck.

"Put some of this on when you get out sweetie; just right around the entrance to your vagina. Tonight before you go to bed I'll clean it up and have a look." The older woman went into the bedroom.

Back in her room she applied the ointment. The feel of her velvet smooth lips under her finger felt so tempting. Standing but in a sort of frog legged squat; legs apart, knees flexed as though she was riding an invisible horse, she made several more circuits of her vaginal opening than were necessary to apply the medication. The phone rang jolting her back from the erotic sensation. She picked up the cordless phone that she had left on her nightstand.

It was Becky. Evidently one of the cheerleaders who lived right in the neighborhood was trying to arrange a pre school-start practice. Rebecca wanted to know if Michelle was interested in coming to watch. The younger girl was thrilled to be asked to the gathering of the high school's elite.

"I'd love to go," she chirped with exuberance, "but I'd better check with my mom. I don't think there's anything planned but ... can I give you a call back when I get down stairs."

"Sure," Becky agreed. "I won't be going over until after lunch ... as long as you let me know this morning."

Lying on her bed in just her panties Rebecca hung up the phone. The e-mail that she'd opened half an hour ago had actually been sent last night. Probably while her and Michelle had their faces between each other's legs.

'I wonder what the rest of the team would think if they knew ... they've all got boyfriends ... maybe they'd be shocked."

She remembered that she had a boy friend too—well sort of. Things were a lot different now than they'd been last spring, before—; 'I kissed a girl and I liked it ... taste of her cherry ChapStick... ' the song lyric invading her thoughts was becoming routine.

Things were different than they'd been at the end of the last school year but it wasn't really because of a kiss. The first one, the one with Melanie, had happened way before that. She'd just never figured out a way to do an encore until Michelle arrived. Encore didn't begin to describe the direction things had gone with her new neighbor.

Becky lay on her tummy, back arched, supporting her upper body on her elbows. She was trying to remember how it had been before. It wasn't that long ago, hardly a week, yet it seemed like eons. Thinking back to her first and only drunken party, to Gloria's cousin...

'I got so brave drink in hand ... lost my discretion—' that wasn't her line from the song it was Melanie's.

Gloria had said Melanie might come over to watch them practice. It came as a surprise that the possibility of seeing the girl who'd given her her first kiss made her pussy twitch.

'I wonder if she does more or if she was just drunk and experimenting ... maybe I'll find out today.'

Becky realized that she'd been grinding against the sheets and now her cookie was really feeling hot. The door to her room opening startled her. She turned her head to look without altering her position. Her mother entered and immediately put the laundry basket she was carrying down.

The sight of her daughter's round pubescent bum so tightly covered in the white cotton panties hit her right in the crotch and she suddenly lost all strength in her arms and legs.

After initially looking in the direction of the door Becky returned to the front facing position which was toward the headboard of her bed.

"I'm gonna go over to Gloria's after lunch," she told her mother without looking back.

Maryann was grateful that Becky was looking the other way. She was on her knees beside the clothes hamper but it wasn't to facilitate the sorting operation. She knew she needed to respond to her daughter's statement but an "Uh-huh" acknowledgement that she'd heard was all she could muster.

Rebecca was sort of idly kicking her feet and the kneeling woman thought of the other night, while watching the movie, how the two girls doing the same sort of thing had affected her. This was worse; at least that time they'd had shorts on. Now she could clearly make out the shadow of the crevice between the firm round hemispheres. When her waggling lower leg didn't block the view she could see the crotch of the panties stretched over the hairless teenaged vulva.

Recollecting its shaved smoothness from the Girls' Group meeting last evening started the infernal throbbing that had plagued her for months. The urgent neediness that she thought she'd over satiated last night was back. She began to fear that having denied herself her whole life that she might have a lot of catching up to do.

Elizabeth put the things from her daughter's hamper that she'd include with the sheets into her laundry basket and rose to her feet. It was as if her mind divided. She was watching herself walk across the room and sit near the foot of Michelle's bed.

The girl who'd been up on her elbows folded her arms across her pillow and lowered her head onto them.

"What did you think of the meeting last night?" the teenager asked.

The memory of walking in the door of the church basement meeting room and seeing half a dozen or so teenagers with their fingers on their naked pussies flooded back and Maryann was speechless. As if the question had been rhetorical, or as a continuation the girl asked,

"Are you going to come to the next one ... I mean stay for the meeting?"

Thinking about the topic the doctor had announced for the next meeting made the older woman's pussy twitch. It came as quite a jolt because the hum that had started when she caught sight of her daughter's derriere was increasing in intensity now that she was sitting well within arms-length of it.

Her arm seemed to have a mind of its own. Her left hand came to rest on one of her cotton covered hills. Maryann was startled by how warm and firm her daughter's ass felt under her fingers as her hand began a slow circular motion.

"Oh I don't think that would be appropriate honey. The group is for teenagers not mothers and daughters."

Becky thought her mother's voice sounded strained and she was suddenly having difficulty concentration on their conversation.

Before her mom had come in she'd gotten herself a little heated up and now the feel of the caressing hand on her tushy turned her thermostat to boil and her girlhood responded. Michelle knew that her hips were moving just slightly in rhythm with her mom's hand. It was a subtle but definite up and down motion with a tiny rotary component to it.

'She likes this' Maryann thought as her sentient hand continued its gentle movements over the panty clad ass.

Her mind would not—could not—recognize what she was doing. Her physical sensory mind and her reasoning thinking brain were separate. Her Catholic schooled devout brain demanded that she stop this sinful activity but the sensory brain was in charge; at least for the moment.

'What would happen if I slipped my hand inside ... under her panties ... and touched her ... her—' That thought was interrupted by the telephone warble.

The sound made them both jump. Maryann jumped right off the bed and over to the door as if the person calling would be able to see what was happening in her daughter's bedroom.

Becky was jolted out of her ever growing state of arousal and grabbed the phone from her night table.

"Yeah ... uh, yeah that's great" she stammered into the phone, fighting her spinning head to acknowledge Michelle's acceptance of her invitation.

The real world intrusion was like a shot of speed for the mother's religious mind. She grabbed the clothes basket and hustled toward the laundry room feeling the tell-tale squishiness between her legs.

She loaded the machine but still felt disconnected. Her physical yearning and her Catholicism were still at odds.

'What had Doctor Perez said last night ... chastity is easier when there's brotherly love in the community' Maryann was having some difficulty defining chastity now.

That concept seemed near the heart of the conflict. She was going to need help to resolve it.

As Maryann went about her chores she decided to call the woman who had become her spiritual adviser; the woman whom she had come to trust with her soul. The bond she'd formed in such a short time with the Hispanic physician did not come as a shock. She had in truth been searching for many years; sometimes it seemed like all her life for a counselor, someone to help resolve these conflicts that divided her in two.

Perhaps it was desperation and perhaps it was divine providence that brought her to Angelina Perez at this critical juncture in her life, who could say. The key was that she implicitly trusted the doctor's expertise in her religion and understanding of her body. It was the essential combination of knowledge required to get her through the impasse.

She sat on the bed and picked up the phone from her night table. Maryann was prepared to be put on hold; prepared to be told the doctor was with a patient and would call her back, so when the pretty red haired receptionist put her right through it came as a pleasant surprise.

"Good morning missus Spencer. How can I help you?" Angelina Perez sounded as chipper and confident as usual.

"I wanted to ask about the—" the name of the document had escaped her, "um, the Vatican two document that you've been referring to."

"The Perfectae Caritatis," Doctor Perez supplied. "What was your question?"

"I can't see how having ... uh I mean engaging in sexual activity with a partner can preserve chastity."

"I think the problem stems from an incorrect definition of chastity," Angie explained. "Chastity is defined as abstinence from unlawful sexual intercourse." She waited for the words to sink in.

Maryann was reminded of Bill Clinton's TV interview about the Monica Lewinsky affair when he had suggested that there were multiple meanings of the verb 'is'.

"Many people think that chastity refers to any sexual activity but that's not accurate, and it's not the way the Church uses the word." Again the doctor paused giving her patient time to digest the information.

"By engaging in self-stimulation, and as the Perfectae Caritatis puts it brotherly love, the temptation to engage in unlawful intercourse is diminished. You're not planning on having sexual intercourse outside the bonds of holy matrimony which is the definition of unchaste." Angelina smiled at the silence coming through the phone line.

"I'm not going to tell you that this is the only interpretation of those words, but it is the one that many people in the church ascribe to."

"Thank you doctor, you've been a great help." Maryann said pensively, speaking for the first time since she'd posed the question.

"Remember your sexuality is a gift from God; it's not intended to be a punishment. God wants you to enjoy His gifts ... not be tormented by them."

"Thanks again" the pensive woman on the bed said.

"Via con dios" Angie replied and hung up.

Maryann went about collecting the next load of laundry. Her question had been answered. Her mind continued to turn the problem over as she worked. If she accepted Doctor Perez's interpretation of the church's stance her problem was resolved. She was divided, her mind in conflict with her body like there was a curtain between the two, but if she looked hard enough she could see light shining through.

Doing the housework on autopilot had the unexpected benefit of making time fly. Before she knew it, it was time to make lunch.

Rebecca came and helped wearing a wrap around checked skirt over her leotard. Maryann thought the aerobics shoes looked odd with a skirt but that was her antiquated and ultra conservative fashion sense talking. Her daughter had her hair pulled into pig-tails which the older woman always thought made her look much younger.

Not much was said as the Spencer women stayed in their own worlds. The older woman's mind did some free association and segued from her daughter's skirt and running shoes faux pas to her own wardrobe.

'I owe Elizabeth an apology for yesterday' she concluded. 'She made us a nice dinner. She tried to give me help with my clothing choices, and I repay her with suspicion and mistrust. I'll go over there after lunch and apologize.'

They were clearing up the last of the lunch dishes when Michelle rapped on the door. Rebecca gave her mother a pleading look.

"Oh go ahead ... have fun with your friends," her mom conceded feigning annoyance.

Becky put down the tea towel, kissed her mother on the cheek and scampered out the door without a word.

Maryann touched her cheek where her daughter's lips had just been. She couldn't figure out why that kiss had been different than the hundreds that had come before it.

The underwear was the same—it was all the same—but she changed the dress she'd been working in for a newer sack style frock. Checking in the mirror was not so much to approve her appearance, which was the same—it was always the same—it was just to be sure that the dress wasn't rumpled and that the skirt was hanging properly below her knees and even as it should be.

When she knocked on the side door of the Conrad's house there wasn't an immediate answer.

'I should have called' Maryann thought but she had wanted to deliver her apology in person. She was about to turn away when Elizabeth appeared at the door.

Her neighbor was wearing short shorts and a T shirt and looking a little sweaty. The twin projections from the front of her 'I love NY' shirt with the word love replaced by a heart attested to the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra. The shorts displayed every possible inch of her gorgeous legs and made them look even longer than their actual impressive length.

Maryann had never worn anything like that and couldn't imagine answering the door dressed as Beth was. The sight shocked her and some sort of very unexpected tremor occurred between her legs.

"Maryann! What an unexpected surprise. Come on in." the provocatively clad woman invited enthusiastically. "I must look a sight" she added running her hand through her chin length blondish brown hair.

"I won't stay long," the visitor promised, accepting the invitation and following her host into the kitchen. "I just came over to say how sorry I am about yesterday."

Elizabeth had replayed the scene from her bedroom a number of times wondering; where she'd gone wrong, if she'd done irreparable damage to the relationship and if she'd ever get another chance.

"Oh nonsense ... you don't have anything to be sorry for ... it's me ... I should apologize for being so presumptuous; but I was sincerely trying to help."

Maryann found her eyes continually being drawn back to her neighbor's chest and the pert nipples poking out the 'I' and the heart shape.

"I know ... I know you meant well," the woman in the shapeless dress acknowledged, "and you're not wrong. I do dress very ... uh, frumpy." She found a word that she thought summed it up. "It just that I've never been comfortable with people staring at me."

"The reason people stare is that you have an incredible figure. Some people will notice in spite of your efforts to hide it," Elizabeth put her hand on her neighbor's upper arm intending it as a soothing gesture but Maryann jumped as though she'd been touched with a branding iron.

"I still think those things I showed you yesterday would look absolutely gorgeous on you, but I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with." The woman in the very short shorts and T shirt said and this time when she put her hand on the Maryann's arm the widow from next door didn't move.

'That's all I came for—mission accomplished—now go home, ' she told herself but she didn't move. Elizabeth's hand on her arm felt nice—soft and hot. In fact so hot that the slight contact was creating heat that was spreading all over.

"I'd like to try them," Maryann said so quietly that she barely heard herself.

"Pardon?" the lady in shorts asked. She thought she'd heard but it was so unexpected that she needed confirmation.

Maryann could scarcely believe she'd said it out loud. She'd been thinking it ever since she'd runaway the day before. Fear and avoidance of sin had propelled her then; just now she'd had a slip but she could take it back, pretend she hadn't said it, no harm would be done. She looked her host in the face and found the woman's deep brown eyes searching. Those probing eyes reached into her secure area and pulled her out—pulled part of her out.

"You won't be disappointed," Beth said and applied a little persuasion to Maryann's arm. Just enough force to start her moving toward the stairs. She still wasn't sure she'd heard the busty blonde correctly but if she was wrong her gambit wouldn't get far. It looked like trying to get her to repeat herself was only causing second thoughts Elizabeth correctly deduced.

Guiding Maryann toward her bedroom she sensed reluctance but no resistance. Inside Elizabeth somewhat unnecessarily closed the door. They were after all alone in the house.

Maryann had that divided feeling. The surreal out of body experience where she was sort of watching herself from a distance. Inside her neighbor's bedroom the illusion was enhanced by seeing herself in the floor to ceiling mirror, just like the one in her bedroom. The furniture and the drapes of course were different but the room was the same, just the looking glass version—completely reversed. Her closet and mirror were on the left when you entered the room Elizabeth's were on the right.

She took in her reflection with detachment. Her dress looked like a burial shroud, no a cocoon like the ones hanging in the trees outside.

Elizabeth who had left her standing alone in the middle of the room came into the reflection and was standing behind her. Her neighbor's face was smiling broadly over her shoulder.