(Author's note: This story is 14 Lit pages long. Please take your time reading and enjoying it. BTW, it is a purely lesbian story with regard to religion and its effects on lesbians)
Chapter 1
There is no doubting that a female is a work of art, some more so than others, a few bordering on perfection. It was something that I concluded for myself when I finally began to see what I'd been denied for so long. The longing of my heart had tried to whisper its desire to me for many years, but it had always been veiled by all that I had been taught since birth. Now that I was free of all the lies, I was often lost in my enjoyment of what had always been my greatest desire. I'd not actually known of it consciously as I say because I was raised in a strict religious faith.
My parents were very firm believers; we lived in the heartland of what is known as the bible belt of America. We'd often gone to different churches or their revivals, but mostly we were Baptists of the most fundamental kind. I remember when I was very young that we went to one of those churches where they gave free vent to their spiritual impulses, some suddenly standing and singing in rapturous joy, some "taken with the spirit" and rolling on the floor twitching and jerking.
Incredible as all of that is to me now, even more incredible was seeing a preacher somehow taking up rattlesnakes in his hands and holding them to his head. That was too much for me back then and I had shut my eyes and covered them with my hands. I had heard of this, and even that some were bitten by those snakes and they had died from their deadly bites.
Talk about being traumatized, and having it all not just seep into my being, but becoming a part of me in such a way that I knew I was destined to be just as my parents were, which is total believers in how we envisioned Christianity to be.
"They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
That's in the King James version of the bible in the last chapter of the gospel said to have been Mark's. I never heard of one being bitten and not dying from the bite, or bites, but that was how they all believed. I nearly believed it all too. There was only one thing that kept me from it.
I'd always preferred playing with other girls, being close to them, but as much as they'd let me, I tried to stay out of girl's clothes. That seldom happened unless it was hot enough for shorts, but even then, it didn't happen as often as I wished it to. However, my preference for playing with girls, which wasn't unusual for any girl, was such that I shied away from the boys whenever I could. Nobody ever noticed that for the longest time.
As was the custom, my parents wanted children right away, or so I was led to believe, and I never doubted that. When it was years and none was forthcoming, I was told that they went before the congregation to be prayed over, and still it didn't happen for a couple of years. Such was their longing, particularly my mother's, that when I finally came along, I was named Hannah as in the biblical mother of Samuel the prophet who was born to a similarly childless couple. Of course that I was a girl and not a boy didn't bother them, at least not my mother. She did finally, just like the biblical Hannah, have more children, albeit with a few years from one to the other.
However there was nothing biblical about me. Though I was just about on the path to being as religious as my mother in my beliefs, I suddenly found myself being slowly torn and feeling confusion, not to mention guilt, but that came a little later. Our church, as any would readily understand, was pretty much of a fire and brimstone type: believe, obey, and accept Jesus as your savior.
Repent and be saved; give up sinning and get right with God lest your soul be lost forever in the eternal fires of hell. Do not allow those devil spirits of alcohol to touch your lips. Praise God each and every day and do not forsake the coming together with your brethren in communal prayer. Oh yes, and homosexuality is an abomination unto the Lord our God. There's nothing he hates more than homosexuals, or so it was believed.
That's where my confusion began!
Some years before puberty, I had the sensing that I really liked girls. I've learned that it is not unusual for a girl to want to be very close to another girl, especially if she was what is thought of as a leader in a group of girls. However, my liking quickly became as an obsession to be near one particular girl who was never thought of as a leader. I thought of her as sweet, beautiful of person, and someone I just had to be near at every opportunity. There were never enough opportunities and before long I found myself day dreaming of her so much that it carried over into night time where it would become dreaming of her.
My dreams of her, Sarah, were always nebulous, having no substance other than that I sensed us almost together, and leaving me with a wondrous feeling of ineffable beauty. I know I sighed endlessly in my dreams, I was so happy to be near to her.
In my waking hours, that desire to be near to Sarah was just as nebulous as my dreams of her, and I never permitted any conscious thoughts of my wanting to be near her in my waking hours. It was as if I'd blocked out thinking of her that way, yet sensing it as an unspoken thought, someone who was just there.
That was how my life was for the longest time–as an unspoken thought!
I'd been so tightly raised that I never permitted anything to interfere with how I should be, how I should act, and even how I should think. I'd often try to block out thoughts of Sarah, but then find myself in a day dream about her. Keeping my confusion to myself became as important as thinking about being near Sarah, and in due time, I was tearing me apart. I just didn't understand myself, why I was so pulled this way and that.
As happens, Sarah became a thought of the past that I seldom revisited, though when I did, it was all so fuzzy, yet those few thoughts always left me feeling slightly nervous and ashamed, not to mention warm and making me blush. Gratefully, as I said, I seldom thought of her so it wasn't too hard a thing to keep from others, namely my parents. Then again, they were always so into being churchy that they didn't notice much else in our house.
Maybe I forgot about Sarah when I began to see other girls in the showers, and naked in all of their glory. In all of their glory because that's how I began to think of girls. Invariably I'd find something about them worth looking at with a relish that pulled deeply at me, and sometimes a lot to look at in one or another girl. I'd be so embarrassed that I'd quickly have to look away, or down at the floor or my own feet, and that was easily noticed by the other girls.
They knew I was a big church goer, so they guessed that it was religion that made me shy about being naked with them. In part, they were right, but mostly not. No, I just found myself loving to look at them, but was sensing that it wasn't proper, but also that it would wind up being a huge problem to me. However, the mixture of my guilt–yes guilt as well as shame–fast became a torture that I looked forward to. I just couldn't help my growing wish to admire, I called it then, all that I saw about them.
I lived that way for the longest time, never going out on a date, and really having few friends even in the church, and none of them close–Sarah having moved away and my not allowing myself to think of being close to anyone else, again, not consciously though I had to know of what I was doing.
In due time, my mother had to ask if I'd thought of marrying, and if so, did I have anyone in mind. That set my mind into turmoil. My confusion was as never before, and I fought to control my near stammering.
"No," I finally said. "I haven't met anyone yet that I feel comfortable with."
"Well, maybe you will soon enough. Don't worry about it. Time will do it's thing as it always does."
My mother's lack of perception into any part of my inner person saved me from goodness only knows what. Finally her deep sense of religion served a good purpose for me.
Did it really serve me well, though? For sure it led me to begin to wonder about myself, to openly try to admit what all was hidden in me, but still, I fought it hard out of habit. There was something there and I knew it, and though it wasn't fully buried in me, yet some part of me wouldn't let it out to where I could face up to it.
When I graduated from high school I went to college, a small one to be sure, and quite Christian, but they allowed sororities. I was in one, probably due to their need of more sisters to make it more as if a popular one as it seemed all sororities tried to portray their selves.
Still, it wasn't as some of the larger colleges, and not quite as liberal either as I understood it. In part, that meant that we were in need of funds to do some of the things we set out for ourselves to do, and that meant fund raising.
Being as innocents, our methods were very simple, almost child-like. We bought cards such as for Christmas and other occasions, as well as some jewelry that we were to take orders for, and other trinkets, which meant going from door-to-door in various close-by neighborhoods.
