. 04

Author's note:

This is, in all its seven parts and their many chapters, one very,

very

long story. If long stories bother you, I suggest you read something else.

No part of this story is written so as to stand on its own. I strongly suggest that you start with

the beginning of Part 1

and read sequentially—giving up at any point you choose, of course.

All sexual activity portrayed anywhere in this story involves only people at least eighteen years old.

This entire story is posted only on literotica.com. Any other public posting without my permission in writing is a violation of my copyright.

We all went inside. In cleaning, I had discovered a room I hadn't noticed before, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves and with some freestanding bookcases as well. I asked if I might browse through them, and was told, "Of course!" I spent a while in there.

Someone called to tell me the car and paperwork were all ready, so I went to find Sam. I made sure that I had transferred money into my checking account, and we went and picked up the car. This involved sitting and signing innumerable pieces of paper, listening to explanations of what each involved and why it was there. By the time I had accepted the keys and we drove off, all that and the amount of money I was spending left me with a kind of surreal feeling, as if I weren't quite in the same world as usual.

I had, of course, told Uncle John and Aunt Sally about the car, but they both came out to look at it. Uncle John suggested that Sam return her rental car, and after thinking about it for a good while she agreed. So we drove off separately and returned together. On our way back, she had me detour to a point where there was a scenic view, with a trail down to two or three picnic tables. She said, "If you and my aunt and uncle had all decided to be stuffy about our sharing a room, you would have gotten to know this place pretty well." It seemed it functioned as something of a lovers' lane. The police routinely swung by it once in a while, but the trail continued past the picnic tables, and they didn't routinely get out and go looking for people.

She kissed me, and I told her how glad I was that we didn't have to come out to a place like this to make love. I admired the view, which really was worth a stop, and we went back home.

Aunt Sally had waited lunch for us—it really wasn't all that late—and we enjoyed the meal. I spoke a little more about Ellen, telling them about really getting to know her. I told them that she had been my partner in the second day of the game, including her falling and my somehow catching up with her in time. I didn't exactly say she had let me catch her, but I thought they figured it out just as I had.

I didn't go into any details about the sex, except to say it was her first time and that she had said she was glad it was me. I went into a lot more detail about Ellen's talents, athletic and academic, and how much in awe of her I had been—and still was for that matter. I told them about Jenny's oblique question about how things had gone, and my encounter with Ellen in the cafeteria, when I asked her if it was OK to say she had enjoyed her time with me, and she had just addressed me as Phil as we talked.

"I don't know whether I can make clear just what a shock and an honor that was," I told them. "This is something you just didn't do, one of you always asked first if it was OK." Sam nodded in agreement. "There I was, loaded down with a tray, and the smartest, most talented, and arguably the most beautiful girl I knew basically told me I was her close friend, whether I liked it or not. I almost dropped my whole supper on the floor, I was so shocked.

"And then, the next day, she and a couple of her good friends sat with us at breakfast, and when we were done eating and got up to take our stuff back and go, she came up to me and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and told them all—and everyone else in earshot!—that she wanted to make sure they all understood I'd made her first time really good and that she was grateful.

"Then, a little later, she arranged with Jenny to come study with us, Jenny and me and two others. Since she was in rather more advanced classes than we were, the benefit was all ours, and it was pretty clear she joined us to be with me.

"We told you how she came to be my partner with Sam and Jenny. She's been a wonderful friend, and I really appreciate your making her so welcome."

Sam said, "I knew the outline of that but none of the details, Phil. She really is that nice and good, and a faithful friend to have. And she took me as a friend without question, for Phil's sake, and that meant a lot to me and still does. And did you notice that Phil said she's more beautiful than I am, without bothering to sugar-coat it?"

"Quit fishing for compliments, Sam. At that time, I was trying to avoid including you in the category of girls I knew. It was only a few days later, the time you were forfeit, that I told you, straight out, that you were beautiful. Even though then I wasn't the least attracted by it. And you are beautiful. I'm not going to get into further comparisons at this point."

Sam said to her aunt and uncle, "I had asked him whether I wasn't better looking than someone else he had, um, had sex with in the game, the time before. And he told me I was beautiful, and he could see it. But he quoted an old proverb at me, 'Pretty is as pretty does.' Phil, as always you were polite to me, and offered to try to make things right with me, if only I would be willing. And it seems somehow you got through to me that day. The very next day I found myself imagining that all that had ended differently, that you had really made love to me then and there, and wishing and wishing you had." She wasn't at the point of crying, this time, but her voice was full of emotion. I got up and went around and hugged her.

After a minute, she said, "Phil apparently isn't really aware of it, but Ellen also has big musical talent. She was in the same choirs I was, and she plays piano and probably more, too. She's not as good on piano as I am—I'm not being catty, that's an honest evaluation—but she's plenty good enough." She was right, I was surprised—and awed all over again at Ellen's abilities.

Aunt Sally asked about our plans for the afternoon. I said I had some reading I probably should do to prepare for classes, now just a week and a half away, but that I really wanted to lie down and see if I could get a nap. Sam said that she was in much the same position.

Uncle John said, "I don't mean to discourage you at all, I'm pleased with you both in this, but you do realize that everyone's expecting you to go to class and then study the material, not the other way around, don't you?"

"I know that's the way people seem to do it, sir, but over four years I think almost all of us learned that you get more out of the class if you have some background. Freshman year we all had regular, frequent meetings with advisors, and when we had trouble they told us we should be doing that—and didn't let us just ignore them, either."

Sam and I did take a nap, and it was just a nap. I set my alarm so we would be awake well before dinner, and it was a good thing, too. I was still sleepy during dinner—and I'm sure not much good as company—but at least I was awake.

After dinner, after we cleaned up, I made Sam play and sing for me again. This really was something new to me, a side of her I'd never seen at school, and I wouldn't get to hear her for many months after the coming week. Once we were partners, she had sometimes sung snatches of songs in my presence,

a cappella

, so I had known her voice was good—but this was miles beyond that.

We went to bed early. As we were beginning to make love, Sam told me, "Phil, I don't think this week is the last time we'll ever have together, but things will be different. I'm pretty sure you'll have things settled with Ellen, and you'll be hers. She'll lend you to me, without any complaint or resentment at all, but it will be a brief loan and we'll all know that. And I wish you could be mine instead, but you'll be hers. So I need to make the most of this week. Please don't ever forget me, that I did really love you. That I do now, I mean."

"You know I insisted on trying to make clear to your aunt and uncle just how wonderful it was to be your partner, how much I delighted in you. Well, your body was part of it, and still is, but not really the important part. You know all the things I love about other girls, other women. I have a thing about red hair, and the body type that hits me hardest is like Moira—like Jenny or Claire or Barbara but with a bigger bust. But you've seen me with a lot of others, starting with Bella or I guess various forfeits, and you know I'm just plain attracted to women, if they're nice in other ways. And once you turned yourself around, you excel in that, as well as in physical beauty.

"I really do hope to be firmly married to someone, before too many years pass, whether it's you or Ellen or Jenny or someone I don't even know, But if it's anyone else, well, you've been a model for what I need in a wife, in so many ways."

I took time to enumerate all the things I loved about her, physically, and by the time I'd gone through all that she wanted me to stop waiting and go ahead. She wouldn't let me eat her pussy, but when I went in she came, and then a little later she came again.

As we lay holding each other afterward, I said, "I know you remember what I told you, because you've brought it up to your aunt and uncle. 'Pretty is as pretty does.' When I said it to you, I was telling why you weren't attractive to me, beautiful as you are. But now, it goes the other way. If you were really plain, or kind of fat, or anything like that, you would be really attractive to me anyway. You have a character that makes you beautiful beyond all those physical charms I was pointing out. I think more than any other woman I've known. In one way I wish I could marry you and two or three others, all together. But I couldn't give you, any of you, the attention you should have, that way. It was too hard on Jenny, when we had agreed from the beginning we weren't exclusive. I think you would really work not to resent it, but in the end you would. Sam, I love you, and this is another place where I don't see how I can make up my mind and choose. I'm just going to have to wait on circumstances. I'm sorry, I wish it weren't that way. And ultimately it's my fault."

She comforted me as best she could, and finally we both went to sleep.

We had agreed that Sunday morning we wouldn't go running, and we set the alarm later. My own physiological alarm didn't let me sleep that late, though, and as usual I woke Sam in getting up. She went off to the bathroom herself. We made love again, once again taking our time at it. She was just so wonderful to me! I did my best to be as good to her.

We got up and shaved. I turned my back while she used the toilet again, and she watched me as I did. I never figured out why she enjoyed that so much. We showered, sensually but just washing, got dressed, and went back downstairs.

Aunt Sally had planned a little more elaborate breakfast, and she had left it pretty much ready and told us what to do. We mixed in the final ingredients and got it in the oven, then sat down to wait. There had been sounds of movement from upstairs while we were doing all this, and soon enough they came down, dressed for church. Uncle John wore a suit, but as I've said, I found myself about in the middle of the congregation in dress, when we got there. To my surprise, it wasn't just people around my age who came in tees and torn blue jeans, either.

Aunt Sally had also told us the schedule for their morning, and suggested that we go later on for church alone. We had left it open the night before, but we were ready, and we asked whether we could just ride with them, so that's what we did. When we got there, we listened to the musicians warm up, and I discovered to my surprise that Aunt Sally was the pianist. Uncle John had other duties somewhere during that time. Sam had known that Aunt Sally was part of the music—she just hadn't thought to tell me.

"Didn't she need to practice during the week?" I asked Sam. "I didn't hear her."

"You were paying attention to other things, sometimes. And I think she probably worked hard on it at some times we were away. But she can skip a week now and then with no problems, she's plenty good enough, unless the music is unfamiliar and difficult both. If you weren't here, I might have asked about singing in the choir, which would have shocked a few people who knew me before. But I know they really want those up there leading in worship—even just people in the choir—to be believers, and I'm not, so it's really just as well."

We went to Sunday School with her aunt and uncle, since we were just there for the one Sunday. The classes were mostly organized roughly by age, just as in my grandparents' church, so everyone in this class was much older than Sam and I were. Everybody knew who Sam was, of course, though since she had only been there a very few times a year for the past four years there was a lot of exclaiming about her having grown up. People were nice and polite to her, but I thought there was some hesitation on some people's part. I was just introduced as a friend of hers.

During the class, I worked hard at keeping my mouth shut, but Uncle John, who was teaching, apparently noticed this and began asking me to comment on various points that came up. In that, he would have fit right in as an instructor in our high school. I did my best to be concise and keep to the point, but I apparently startled a few people myself. I had said what I thought about the questions quite honestly—in terms of what the text meant and what application one would have to draw from it—but on none of the points did that take me from what people in a church like this believed, so I was puzzled.

I asked Sam about that afterward, after several people had greeted me personally, when we had a few moments to ourselves. She looked at me and said, "Phil, you startle me sometimes, with how you can be simultaneously so perceptive and so obtuse. Your answers were well thought out, far more than they would expect from a nineteen-year-old, and especially far more than they expected from anyone here as a friend of mine! You gave me a huge boost in these people's opinions, and I appreciate it—it will help. I'm going to have to work hard to be Sam, not Samantha, to them, and these people all have more influence with the core of the church than you realize. I've offended a lot of them over the years, and in fact there are some I should speak to after church, about some specific things I did, and you've made that a lot easier. They'll be more willing to listen, now."

We went in and sat down for the service. I enjoyed the music, but made no attempt whatsoever to sing. Sam understood why, and gave my arm a squeeze as she sang along, beautifully. There were various things said and done, the choir singing, the offering taken, and another song, and then the sermon.

I had been introduced to the pastor—Pastor Bill Billings—on our way in, and I had rather pigeonholed him at that point, but his preaching was much stronger than I had expected. His text was from Ezekiel 18: "Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye."

He put this in the context of the chapter, that each man is responsible for his own heart and his own sins. He noted that this was a call for each to repent of his own wrongdoing, that the Lord's true pleasure was in the sinner's repentance and turning to righteousness, not in administering the punishment due to his sins. He pointed out that in verses 26 and 27, it is clearly stated that no past good deeds will save the person who turns away from righteousness, and that true repentance will lead to salvation, that the repentant man will save—meaning keep—his soul alive.

In the text, he said, it is easy for us to read the "will" in "why will ye die?" as simply indicating the future tense, but at the time this translation was made, it indicated the person's will, that is choice and decision. The Lord was asking them, Why are you so determined to die, that you won't turn and escape from it?

He brought in the discussion of the anatomy of sin as given in Romans 1, beginning with a refusal to recognize God's existence and character, "his eternal power and Godhead." At each point, since people choose to reject God, he lets them take the next step, into more and more serious sins. Idolatry, sexual sin—in particular homosexuality, the rejection of what was clearly the way their bodies were made—and then coveting, malice, envy, murder, quarreling and divisions, deceit, evil minds, and gossip. In each case, the root was the rejection of God's standards, which could be plainly seen, and a desire to control their own lives, set their own standards, and not have to answer for their attitudes and behaviors.

He pointed again to God's willingness—his eagerness!—to forgive. He said that his text, taken only by itself, might lead someone to think repentance alone was sufficient for forgiveness. But he cited many passages which showed that sin requires a payment, ultimately of blood, and said that in the whole context even of the Old Testament alone, people were told repeatedly that the sacrifices they were commanded to make were insufficient. He put forth the sacrifice of God's perfect Son as the means appointed for salvation, the only possible adequate means, apportioned to the sinner on the basis of faith as a means. The animal sacrifices did save, but only because of their relation as types to the archetype, the perfect sacrifice—and the worshipers' faith and trust, as they made them, in God's promise to forgive.

He returned to his text to remind the congregation that the whole chapter was addressed to God's chosen people, whom he had redeemed—in the person of their ancestors—from slavery in Egypt, warning them and begging them to repent of their sins and be saved. The pastor called on all of us, believers and any nonbelievers who might be present alike, to put our sins behind us, repenting and turning away from all wickedness, not looking at the sins of others but at our own. He told us that only the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts could allow us to do this, but that this was freely offered to all who will seek it.

He finished in prayer, asking God to bring all this home to those who needed to hear it.

Early in the sermon, Sam had begun crying, quietly, tears overflowing her eyes and running down her face. I pulled out my handkerchief, which was clean, and offered it to her, but I also moved closer to her and put my arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head on my shoulder and continued crying, through the whole sermon. Only when the musicians came forward for the closing hymn did she wipe her face and blow her nose.

After the benediction, she blew her nose again, tucked my handkerchief into her purse, and thanked me. I didn't think she primarily meant the use of the handkerchief, though she may have. She reminded me that she had people she needed to speak to, asking me to come along but to stand back after I was introduced, to let her speak with them herself.