Betrayed Ch 03 2

If I was a swearing person I would be forgiven for saying 'the bastard has betrayed me again!' but I don't swear, although under the circumstances I just might take it up.

The reason for this came about after I'd put my reputation on the line to save my father, Pastor William Williams (name courtesy of his Welsh heritage) from the scandal involving his appearance in a porn video made before I was born. I interceded and got him a second chance with the church Elders and he was allowed back into the church ministry albeit in a slightly reduced probationary role. Now I've just found out that he lied to me when he told me that his fornication with Celia on that video was a one off event and that he had been a true and faithful husband and father ever since. But he hadn't, his liaison with her had been ongoing and, when he was reinstated he decided not to risk any repetition by dumping her, a bad move as it turned out.

"I think that you'd better tell me the whole story from start to finish." I told Andrew, my boss, lover and future husband, the bearer of this revelation.

"I've only just found out most of it myself, her Stat Dec goes on for pages. Okay, from the beginning, Celia is much older than I am, twelve years older in fact, although she looks a similar age to me. I must have been eight or nine when this first happened, she was working her way through her Business Admin course by taking casual jobs, or so I thought. Her main source of income came from the porn industry, the waitress job was only a front that my cousin set up to recruit partners for her on-screen activities. When she met and had sex with your father something changed in her, she gave the porn industry away and found work elsewhere until she'd finished her studies and was given a job in the office of the family retail chain."

"When I'd completed my studies, my father was looking for a suitable place for me and Celia convinced him that I should take over the store here, and that she'd come with me to support me. Little did I know at the time that she had an ulterior motive and that was so that she could be close to your father and continue their affair. Although we lived in the same house she could come and go as she pleased without me being any the wiser and she could also entertain guests without disturbing me. It appears that many nights when he was supposed to be in church working on his sermons he was with her getting inspiration from her."

"He had told her that he would leave his wife and marry her when the time was right, but it never seemed to be the right time. She was getting impatient and sought to stir things up a bit. It was she that uploaded that video onto the Web, she figured that there would have to be someone around here that trolled these sites looking for this sort of thing. I think that it might even have been her that alerted Rob to the existence of the video but I can't be sure of that. She had it worked out that if she were to destroy his career it would destroy his marriage and she'd have him for himself."

"But by doing this she's destroyed everything, his life, my mother's, her own and probably even yours and mine."

"She hasn't destroyed ours, we can rise above all of this, and we'll support your mother."

"I don't see how, I put my reputation on the line to get him back in with the church and now, because of this, my reputation means nothing to them."

"Ruth, Darling, we will overcome this believe me. It wasn't you that caused all of this, you had faith and surely the church will understand the meaning of faith. Faith is a belief in the intangible, in something, without proof of its truth, and the church has faith in spades. It has suspended reason by having faith in something that has been proven to be untrue, simply because it has been told to ignore anything that disagrees with its beliefs."

"This sounds strange coming from someone who, only weeks ago, was an important part of the church."

"I was an important part of the administration of the church, it was my job, but I didn't, I don't, necessarily believe in everything that they believe. Do you know the reason why I don't believe everything that the church tells me?"

"No."

"Because I haven't totally suspended my desire to learn just because I've been told that I should. I continue to explore what science teaches us about our world and where it began and where it's heading. I don't believe in the Creation Myth because that is based on man's knowledge of science at the time that the Bible was written. We have moved ahead in our scientific knowledge since then despite the writings of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a man held up in great esteem by the Creationists, who told them that if science disagrees with the Bible then science is automatically wrong. The Old Testament is a history of man's relationship with God, and is based on legends that have one thing in common. They are all morality tales designed to show the Children of Israel the folly of disobeying the laws of God. But the Old Testament laws were written by man, not God and the Bible even tells us that."

"Even the events of the Old Testament have been proven to be a figment of someone's imagination. Recent archaeological discoveries in Egypt and Canaan have revealed that an event held sacred by Jews and Christians alike, the Exodus, did not happen. There is no evidence of a significant slave presence in Ramesi where the Bible tells us that the children of Israel were supposed to have been held captive, certainly not in the numbers quoted in the Bible. Excavations in Jericho, the site of Joshua's 'triumph' did reveal the destruction of the city walls, but this has been dated at over a thousand years before Joshua and his army arrived."

"I have to say that, just because the current body of evidence would yell at us to discount everything in the Bible, that we shouldn't abandon it totally. The single most important part of the Bible holds true regardless, and that is the Two Commandments of Jesus in the New Testament, which if you look closely at them are a distillation of the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament; you are to love God, and it doesn't matter if you call him or her God or Yahweh or Allah, with all your heart soul and spirit and to love your neighbour, in the universal context, as yourself. That is the core truth of the Bible, the rest is window dressing, but try and tell the church leaders that. They will not accept any truth other than their own, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Believe me I've wasted a lot of time head-butting that particular brick wall."

"You sound as if you would have no compunction about destroying the church."

"No, that's not true. I would like to see a fundamental shift in church ideology based on the dynamic nature of our scientific knowledge, and our personal and not institutional relationship with God. There is a reason for the existence of churches and that is largely social, a place where like-minded people can meet and discuss, with hopefully open minds, their beliefs and to support each other in times of need. How many churches do you know of have a strong social welfare agenda? Certainly not the so called evangelical churches, they are all about exclusion, if you don't follow their rules you won't get to heaven, rather than the inclusion that Jesus taught. Even their liturgy is egoistic, they pray in tongues that no-one understands and say that only God needs to understand it. But the Bible tells us that God knows what we pray even before we pray it, so what's the point? Their worship practices are all about a public display of conformity to their rules, not about God and what he wants."

"Wow, this is the first time I've ever heard anyone who so critical of the church, you must have been hurt badly by it."

"Yes I was. When I was much younger I was going with a girl who went to one of those churches. We had reached the point in our relationship where we were considering marriage but she had reservations based on the fact that I didn't go to church. She arranged for me to meet with the Pastor of her church to discuss the situation. At that time I sort of considered myself to be a Christian because I'd been brought up a Christian. Anyhow, he asked me if I believed that the only way to get to Heaven was through Jesus Christ. My answer displeased him, I told him that, as a Christian, I believed that following Jesus was the path to heaven, he seemed pleased at that until I added a little more. I told him that I would not put myself above God by telling Him that He should deny entrance into Heaven to anyone that doesn't believe the same as me." This displeased him so much, that the next Sunday, he preached a sermon directed at my girlfriend about not yoking herself to an unbeliever. She broke off our relationship because of that and refused to see me or discuss it with me. Yes I was hurt, but I got over it."

"Are you saying that, while I might be hurt by the church because of this I should get over it?"

"In a long winded and roundabout way that's exactly what I'm saying to you, and I will help you in any way that I can."

I kissed this man that I loved. "Andrew, I love you so much. You have taken me through all of the things about my beliefs that have bothered me, and have explained them to me in such a way that I understand that my reliance on the church is not absolute and that my personal strength, along with my faith in God, will get me through this."

"Not forgetting a little help from yours truly."

"How could I forget that?" I kissed him again. "What I need right now is to be held by you, kissed by you and made love to by you."

"Can you hold that thought for a minute or two?"

"Why, don't you want to make love to me?"

"I do, more than anything, but we need to contact your mother and ask her over here, she needs to know of the latest developments." I rang Mum and asked her to come over. I tried to sound casual but I think that she knew something was wrong and said that she'd be right over. While I was talking to her Andrew was undressing me and himself and by the time I'd hung up the phone his head was between my legs and he was licking my pussy. "You'll have to hurry, she'll be here in ten minutes."

"I don't like to be rushed. So what if we're still at it when she gets here."

We had finished and cleaned up but Mum still hadn't arrived. "I'm worried, she should have been here by now."

"Try calling her." Andrew said. I tried and got no response.

"I think we should go around and see if everything's okay." I knew in my heart that everything wasn't okay. I don't believe in premonitions and psychic abilities, I do, however believe in gut feelings and my gut was feeling terrible right now. Andrew drove as fast as he could but it wasn't fast enough. Father's car wasn't in the driveway as it normally would have been when we pulled up. I raced inside, the door was unlocked, not a good sign, and I ran for Mum's bedroom. What I saw there filled me with fear, blood on the wall and on the floor of the en-suite. Mum was bleeding badly. "Andrew!" I screamed. He came and saw the mess.

"Shit, what happened?"

"It looks like Celia must have told Mum what she'd done to him, and Mum confronted him with the news."

"See if you can stop the bleeding while I warn Celia and call the police."

I grabbed a couple of towels and applied pressure bandages to stem the major flows. Andrew came in and knelt beside me. "It looks worse that it is, the worst of the bleeding had stopped and she's been trying to tell me something but she's not coherent at all."

"Police and ambulance are on their way here and I've told them that he's probably heading for Celia."

"I think that he's lost the plot this time. I hate to think what he's intending to do."

I could hear sirens and Andrew went out to show the police and ambulance officers in. Mum was checked out and loaded onto a stretcher with an oxygen mask and a drip in her arm. She was wheeled out to the waiting ambulance and its siren blared away as it left for the Emergency Room.

"Can you tell me what happened here?" One of the policemen asked.

"Yes. It would appear that my mother has just been told some devastating news about my father. What I assume happened is that she confronted him with it and he beat her up. I, we, believe that he's on his way to confront the source of that news and I shudder to think what he'll do when he gets there. We've warned the woman that he's going to see and also called the police and told them."

"Would you care to give us the details of this news."

"My father is a Pastor and recently I did something terrible to get back at him for something that he did to me. It was the culmination of a lifetime of humiliation that he'd subjected me to. It transpired that I'd got it all wrong and that he was blameless, at least that's what he had me believe. I put my neck on the line and negotiated with the church to reinstate him. It turns out that he lied to me and what I'd thought to have been an isolated incident many years ago has now been revealed to have been going on right up until now. The woman involved has made a public statement refuting his version of events and he's only just found out about it."

"You weren't responsible for that riot at that church a couple of weeks ago when someone slipped a porn video onto the church's big screens during a service?"

"Mea culpa, I cannot tell a lie. I believed him when he told me that what was on the video was the only time that had happened but we've now found out that the two of them have been lovers all of this time. He'd promised to leave my mother for her but the timing was never right. The woman, who is Andrew here's sister, got sick of waiting and following him being forgiven by the church he decided, rather than risk being found out he'd dump her."

"A little late for that don't you think?"

"Yes it was. But then he's been under a lot of strain lately."

"Is this the first time that he's done this to your mother?"

"No, a couple of weeks ago he hit her, but nothing quite as bad as this time."

"When we find him he'll be arrested and charged with assaulting your mother."

"I hope that it's the least of his problems."

"Do you think that he'll do something bad to this woman?"

"Yes." I said before that I didn't believe in premonitions and psychic abilities, I shall have to reassess that belief.

"It looks like we can't do much more until your mother recovers enough to make a statement. If you think of anything give me a call." He handed me a card and turned to go. His phone rang. "Barton. Yes, yes, I see, okay I'm on my way." He terminated the call. "When you contacted the police earlier you mentioned that you thought that your father might be headed for Andrew's house."

"Actually Andrew made the call, but that's where we thought that he was headed, why?"

"He's there, and he's barricaded himself in the house and has threatened that he'll kill himself and the woman inside if we try to beak in."

"I think I'd better get over there, I might be able to talk some sense into him."

"A police negotiator is on his way."

"I still think that I should be there."

"Okay, but you'll have to keep behind the containment lines."

We followed them to Andrew's house and found it surrounded by heavily armoured police and either brave or stupid media without bullet proof jackets."

A man was talking on a mobile phone to my father. "Don't do anything silly, we can work through your problems without resorting to anything that will harm you or anyone else. Just talk to me, tell me what your problems are, I want to help you." I was standing a couple of metres away and even from that distance I could hear him, I couldn't understand what he was saying and I got the impression that the negotiator was unable to make any sense of it. "Just calm down, take a deep breath and calm down, we won't get anywhere until you can calm down. Do you have a weapon of any sort? You have a gun, a shotgun and you're going to use it on anyone that tries to take you. Now where getting somewhere."

I don't know how he worked that out as a positive, the thought of my father with a weapon of any kind was scaring me.

"Your hostage, is she hurt in any way? No, do you think that we could speak to her. No? That's fine, we don't need to talk with her, you can tell us everything we want to know. Tell me, what is your name? You don't want to tell me, and that's fine."

"His name's William Williams, I'm his daughter."

"Do you mind if I call you William that seems to be a good name? Your name isn't William? It doesn't really matter but I think I'll still call you that. Tell me William, do you live here? No? Can you tell me where you live, there may be someone there that can help you. You won't tell me? That's fine I don't need to know but isn't there someone who cares for you and you would like to speak to and work something out? No-one cares for you and you don't care for anyone and you don't care about anything anymore. I find that hard to believe because we all have someone who cares for us, we might not think we do in times like this, but there is always someone. It doesn't have to be a family member, I understand if you don't want to talk to family, it could be a friend, a work colleague possibly, but there must be someone." There was more shouting over the phone.

I walked over to the negotiator. "Do you mind if I try to talk to him?"

"You can try but he doesn't seem very rational just now."

"He's been under a lot of strain lately and it just got even worse. I want to try, I need to do something."

"He's all yours." He handed me the phone.

"Daddy, it's Ruth, I need to talk to you, please listen to me, listen to what I have to say and if when I've finished you still won't talk to me I'll understand. Daddy, I know exactly what it is that you're going through, I've gone through the same thing myself, you feel that the world is laughing at you, and they don't even bother to hide it from you, they laugh at you to your face. It hurts, it hurts very much until you stop and think about it and then you realise that they are afraid of you, they are afraid that you are better than they are and they laugh at you and tease you and say nasty things about you to boost their own self image. Once you come to terms with that you realise that they can't hurt you any more, that you can stand in front of them and say to them that you are no longer hurt by them, that you love them regardless of what they say to you and about you, and the hurtful names that they call you, names like 'geek', and 'fuzzy wuzzy' and 'four eyes', and 'wimp'. Once you realise that these names can't hurt you it gets easy to face them."

"In this world there are people who love you and there are people who hate you, and in between there are an awful lot of people that like you, some more than others. Regardless of their feelings for you, the one thing that you've taught me is that you love them and if you love them you will never do anything to hurt them. Sooner or later you will find out that, because of your love for them, they will, in turn, love you. Somewhere out there are a lot of people that you have helped over the years and now that you need help to get through this speed hump in the road of life, these people will come and help you. I'd like to think that they will help you regardless of the problems you are facing right now, but I'm nothing if not pragmatic, I'm a realist. You will have to do something to tell these people that you aren't over-reacting to a situation, but that you are a rational human being going through a rough patch right now, and that you would appreciate it if they would help you to get through that rough patch. You need to give them that opportunity to repay you for all the help that you've given them. What do you say Daddy, will you come out and let me and all of those others help you?"