Although this story is all about sex, and love, there are only a few graphic scenes in it, so just be warned.
Also, this story is critical of religion, so if that is going to offend you, I suggest reading something else. But remember, it is just a story.
Thursday Afternoon. A Suburban Subdivision
Nathan was panting and his heart was beating faster than he could ever remember. Shelby's breast was beautiful, perfect. White, soft, firm, with a dark, hard, puckered nipple surrounded by a small circle of slightly lighter flesh. He had dreamed of seeing it, touching it, kissing it, for nearly a year, ever since he first saw her at the church picnic. She wasn't his first girlfriend, if you used a loose interpretation of the word. He had gone out with Adrienne a few times, and had held her hand, but that was as far as that went. And Liz had kissed him on the lips that one time, after their third movie date, but then they broke up.
But Shelby was something different. Compared to the other girls at Harmony Christian Life Academy, she was a little more daring. Maybe because she came from the city and had actually gone to public school before coming to Harmony, but for whatever reason, she was the only girl that Nathan ever heard question the teachers—heck, she was the only student, boy or girl, who argued with the teachers. Nothing seriously blasphemous, and she never directly disputed the basic principles that they all were taught, but she would push and question the teachers, sometimes to the point of being sent to Pastor Stephens' office.
Of course, Nathan didn't know that when he first saw her at the church picnic. What he saw was a tall, beautiful brunette, wearing what seemed to be a modest sundress that somehow fit her a little more snugly than the clothing worn by any of the other senior girls at the picnic. No one could look at her and say that she was breaking any of their church's written or unwritten rules, but if you looked carefully, and Nathan did, you could tell that she was pushing up against the standards. Also, her eyes were piercing blue, and Nathan thought that they cut right through him. He felt every type of impure thought that teenage boys were capable of, even good Christian boys, and he knew that night he would be secretly touching himself in a way that Pastor Stephens would certainly disapprove of.
Now, months later, his mother and little brother were out, his father was at his accounting office, Shelby was in his room, her perfect breast was nestled in his palm, and Nathan didn't know what to do. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to kiss it. He desperately wanted to kiss it, to lick the hard brown nipple. He wanted to bury his face in Shelby's cleavage, immersing himself in her scent, while squeezing her breasts. But somehow he could not.
Nathan forced himself to tear away his gaze from the perfection of Shelby's left breast and look at her face, which was flushed, at her pink lips, of course bare of any lipstick or gloss, which was not permitted, and then at those ice blue eyes. She looked confused.
"Is there anything wrong?" she whispered, which considering their behavior seemed appropriate even though no one was in the house. Her voice was a few registers huskier than usual
"It's all wrong," Nathan said, not quite understanding the words that came out of his own mouth.
Shelby jerked away from him, as if struck, and her breast pulled away from his cupped hand. She quickly hid it back inside her bra and buttoned her shirt, standing as if to flee.
"Wait," Nathan said, asking more than demanding. "Please."
"What did you mean?" Shelby demanded, smoothing her clothing reflexively, returning to a more proper appearance.
"Mean?" Nathan asked. "Mean about what?"
"How is everything wrong?"
Nathan thought before speaking, because he knew that what he was about to say could change their relationship, for better or worse. He had always been a thoughtful boy, considerate and pious. He believed in Jesus as his personal savior, believed in what Pastor Stephens and his parents taught, believed that the Lord had blessed him and looked out for him. But recently he wondered why the Lord had placed Shelby, this luscious temptation, before him. Somehow he knew that this was a test, and it was a test that he was miserably failing in so many ways.
While he thought, he looked at Shelby, who was waiting, but beginning to look impatient at his silence. Why, Nathan thought, would God create this perfect creature, smart and beautiful, who loved Jesus, and then make him think thoughts about her that were impure and improper? And why would these thoughts make him aroused, and make him want to do things that only married people should do.
"I don't know," Nathan finally whispered. "Shelby, I just don't know."
She looked at him and smiled, causing a warmth to spread from Nathan's solar plexus through his whole body. If that was not something divine, then what was it? Nathan shook his pounding head.
Shelby reached out and took his hand. "I don't know either, I guess," she said.
Nathan thought about the past months, as their relationship developed. He remembered the shy, halting conversation that they had at the picnic, when he had poured Shelby a Diet Coke. How he felt that spark, that thing that was missing from his dates with Adrienne and Liz, and he thought that maybe she did too. Which scared him. He had just turned 18, and was beginning to think about college, and leaving town. His parents, of course, pushed for a Christian college, and Nathan was about 90% sure that they had made the right choice. He worried about the Godlessness of the other colleges he had investigated, with their drug use, and drinking, their casual sex, and their liberal professors. He worried about being laughed at, marginalized, mocked for his beliefs.
But what if he had found the girl for him, right there in town? How would that change things? And as the year went on, it got worse.
When school started, they became friends, and Nathan was a bit scandalized by some of the things she said in class, while at the same time being intrigued. She even asked him out on their first date, and after that they were nearly inseparable. They talked for hours before ever touching. Holding hands had progressed to kissing. Kissing progressed to above the clothing rubbing, above the waist, and even that was on the fringes of acceptable behavior, but they had gone no further, until today.
And then there was that breast. In his hand. But they weren't married. In fact, they knew that they would be going to college in different states, hours away from each other, and they knew that time and distance tested relationships. Even though they had said they loved each other, and meant it, they were both smart enough to realize that things you say when you are in lust in high school don't always carry on to college. They had danced around the future, knowing that they did not understand God's will, and that they were in his hands. Like Shelby's breast was in Nathan's, and he didn't know what to do or how to act.
"It is wrong, right?" Nathan asked. He sort of believed that Shelby might not think it was wrong, considering that she had been the one to open her shirt, and didn't stop his hand from reaching in to first touch the smoothness of her bra, and then the warm softness of her breast. And he saw the look on her face, her eyes closed, head tilted back, as he touched her. And he heard the soft purring sound that she made. But it was exactly this, the pleasures of the flesh, that Nathan had been told to guard against for as long as he could remember.
Shelby looked at him. "I know that's what they say, but is it really wrong?"
"We can't. I can't, at least right now. But you need to know that it isn't you. You're so beautiful. There's a part of me that wants to throw you on this bed, rip off your clothing and worship your beauty, then make love to you."
Shelby started breathing harder as Nathan spoke, and Nathan felt her squeeze his hand harder. The mental picture of Shelby on his bed that Nathan created made his cock stiffen uncomfortably in his pants. With effort, he continued, "But that is not how I was brought up, not what I was taught."
