Mary Magdalene
I was 22 years old in the summer of 2013, and in need, sadly enough, of a job. I'd graduated from Eastern Illinois on a football scholarship, but I'd majored in sports medicine and, well, let's just say that I was now regretting the early-college mantra of "do what you love." I applied everywhere that might have summer openings, being wholly unqualified for anything that paid above minimum wage, even, in my desperation, applying to the local catholic summer bible camp that ran for ten weeks June-August and that I had as a high schooler attended at the insistence of my devout mother. Of course they were the only ones who offered me a job, impressed perhaps overmuch by the false sincerity I injected into the affirmation of faith on my application.
They had, at least, a weight room, but when I entered it with my new lifting buddy—an incredibly Jesus-loving and incredibly built fellow-counselor named Kyle—I found that my strength had diminished considerably since I'd lost my college gym membership.
"If you wanna get big fast" Kyle advised me "What you gotta do is stop jerking off."
"Uh huh" I replied. The catholic mind sees the cessation of masturbation as a total panacea, and I had no plans to spend my 10 weeks surrounded by beautiful chaste little Christian virgins totally jerk-free.
"I'm serious." Kyle insisted. "Try it out. Boxers do it before every fight, haven't you ever seen
Rocky
?"
I was hoping to make some serious gains, and almost as a lark (and also because, sleeping with three other counselors in a room and knowing there was a line outside my thin shower door every morning, it was pretty hard to masturbate anyways) I didn't touch myself at all for the first couple weeks of camp. It actually worked, for whatever reason (Kyle hypothesized the retention of testosterone, and I, sports-medicine major that I was, had no idea whether said theory was plausible; I went with it). I had a lot more energy, and I used it to lift hard. That energy eventually stopped going away, though, even after a hard afternoon of lifting; it sort of built and built, with a sexual side that couldn't be denied or even entirely translated into aggression or physical exertion. I found myself looking at my female co-counselors with hungry eyes, and even, upon occasion, at some of our better-looking high-school charges. By the tenth week, I was about ready to burst, and the tenth crop of local kids was just unfair. The main reason for this being, of course, Maria St. Simone.
An entirely ethereal name, and she matched it. She was a wisp of a graduated senior, just barely 18, richly blonde hair down to her shoulders and bright blue ever-smiling eyes. She loved Jesus just about as much as any kid we'd had that year, praying often and brightly proclaiming, at table, things like "God sure has just blessed us with this meal today, hasn't he?" I always hated her for a moment when she said things like that; she'd sit up straight at the mention of God's name and her perky little tits would strain against her low-cut shirt. She was the only daughter of noted local general-goods magnate Carl St. Simone, and beautiful in the way that hard men's beloved and protected daughters usually are, thin but soft, all blonde curls and bright smiles, too popular to dress modestly and too demure not to carry herself self-consciously in light of that. It was amazing how innocent she could look in the tiny short-shorts that passed for standard attire among girls her age, amazing how I, a total stranger, was treated every day to an incredible length of leg and thigh, to a tight little ass fighting against the tight little shorts. I'd munch my awful plastic-tasting peanut butter sandwich, of which I'd eaten about nine trillion thus far that summer, and stare angrily at my under-table erection, commanding it to calm down.
The big spiritual experience that capped every week off and sent every crop of kids home happy and faith-filled was a walk alone in the woods. A sort of spirit-quest (without, sadly, any mescaline) for modern-day catholics, you were supposed to investigate the endless woods that surrounded the camp until you found a place that felt near to God, and then fall on your knees and have a totally private religious experience. At the end of five days of thrice-daily prayer, endless devotionals, and partial starvation, the kids were always in intensely spiritual moods, and it usually worked. Often kids got lost, of course, and we had to walk around calling for them until the little idiots came out of the woodwork.
It happened on Friday nights, which meant that I was preparing for my weekend off work. I always walked out to a little place I knew, an inexplicable clearing in the middle of some pretty dense arboreal growth, with soft grass and a great view of the moon (which, fortunately enough, was scheduled to be full on the Friday of 10th week), and smoked a bowl, communing with higher powers only if I forgot myself and had a couple extra bowls as well. It was the only good part of the week for me, and I was therefore displeased when I saw that I had been beaten to my spot this week by none other than Maria St. Simone herself, who was kneeling in the center of the clearing, praying, blonde hair shining in the moonlight, shivering a little because of the unexpectedly cool August night, and perhaps partly out of religious devotion as well
"Hey." I said, after watching quietly for a minute or so.
She looked back, a little scared in a cute pouting