Falling Off My Pedestal

All participants are over the age of 18 years old prior to any sex scenes.

I seemed to have it all at one point. I grew up in a small town, the only daughter of a non-denominational church pastor. I was spoiled. No doubt about it. I easily fulfilled the ideals that my parents expected. I sang in church. Played the piano. Prayed at the altar when my dad called for prayer. I was an example to my classmates. I was smart and made all A's in school. My parents expected me to go to the nearest church supported college when I graduated from high school. I had a bout with rheumatic fever when I was in third grade. I missed so much school that my parents and the teachers decided that I would just repeat the grade and move forward. It was a small school and everyone seemed to be in favor of that decision. Being the model kid that I was, I always accepted the authority and decisions of my elders. My parents were so proud of me and my dad talked about me in his sermons way too much. I didn't mind that when I was very young but during puberty I began to be embarrassed when he did that.

Puberty. The plague for good little girls. It was awkward for me. Neither of my parents are tall but I started growing up at first and then out. They traced it back to my maternal grandfather who was 6'4". I wasn't that tall. I topped out at 5'-9". I was taller than everyone in my class at that point. Then my hips flared nicely and my boobs started growing. I finally reached a full C cup. What I kept hidden from everyone was that my areolas were three inches wide and my nipples were little nubs that aggravated me. I wore thicker bras to keep the hard nipples from showing. I thanked god that we didn't have swimming in my high school. I would never have gotten into a speedo. During gym classes, I folded up some tissue paper and placed it inside my sports bra to hide the pesky protrusions. It was only later that I found out that sexual excitement made my areolas puffy and my nipples as hard as pencil erasers.

As I filled out, most of my female classmates were also developing. I seemed to be a bit ahead of the average girls. Not that there weren't some other above average girls. I remember a girl one year younger than me named Beverly. She developed a set of breasts that were the envy of every girl in school. The older boys tried to date her but her parents wouldn't let her. Her boobs grew so big that she became embarrassed by all the kidding. I felt sorry for her. I don't know exactly how big she was but I guessed that she might wear a G cup. Yeah, that big. And she wasn't fat. She was solid and played all the sports offered by the school. She was probably the best athlete in the school.

The boys were left far behind. In retrospect, I think that is why women tend to marry men who are older than they are. I don't mean May-September. Just, I notice things like that. Most of my girlfriends married guys on the average two years older than them. Seems to make sense that male puberty is about two years behind. I guess we grow up attracted to boys who seem to match us in maturation level.

So, I was pretty much the perfect physical specimen. However, I didn't play sports. I just did gym class. My parents were more into introducing me to the arts and pointing me toward college where I could meet and marry a nice divinity student and become a great pastor's wife like my mom.

The only problem with that was that as I progressed through high school, I became silently resentful of all the expectations. I had grown up so repressed that I was forced to shun the appearance of evil. My folks often railed about the behavior of the youth in our little town. They even looked down on some of the kids in our little church as being too 'worldly'. This was a topic I heard over and over at the dinner table where they both blessed me for being so 'godly'.

I only had one classmate who was in our church. Cynthia. She was the daughter of a pharmacist who worked in a larger town nearby. Her mother was basically the 'devoted' church member and her father came also but didn't participate much in the business of the church. I suspected that he followed his wife mostly and thought it was better to go along to get along. Cynthia favored her father more than her mom. She was slimmer than her mom, much more like her dad. She was pretty but had a little trouble with adolescent acne. She probably wore a little too much makeup for that reason. She was like an A cup but it didn't seem to bother her. Cyn was a little less holy than her mother. I think she agreed with her father's way of pleasing her mom. Not that she was disruptive. It was just that she talked to adults in the church in one fashion and to our schoolmates in another fashion. On the whole, she could easily float each social dynamic to her advantage.

I wouldn't say that Cyn was the reason why I began questioning my straight and narrow upbringing. I think that was more my realizing how confining the religious expectations were on the pastor and his family. We socialized mostly with other pastors and their families. At least the pastors who didn't condemn non-denominational churches. See, in small towns, you wore the identity of your religious affiliation. I'm sure that's why most people in town identified with some church. If they didn't, every pastor in the county would be knocking on their doors trying to save their souls.

For my part, I began longing for a more diversified social platform. It just wasn't going to happen while I was in high school. Plus, my parents had already picked my college and my dad got a discount on tuition being a member of the clergy. I didn't look forward to college any more than I did remaining the 'perfect little girl'. I would listen in school as we got older. Usually, the juicy conversations were kept away from girls like me but occasionally I would hear some girls talking about boys and sex. I had to move away if I felt like they might think I was curious. Nevertheless, I was intrigued about sex.

I turned eighteen over the summer before my senior year. The repeat of a grade made me almost a year older that most of my classmates. I had been out with boys at school sponsored activities. What my parents would call a date. However, there was no unsupervised time to get acquainted with boys because any hint of objectionable behavior would have the church elders and their wives calling my dad to complain. Since the church was our livelihood, the whole family was always under a microscope.

That summer I was working at a hardware store next door to a tire shop. That is how I met Bryan. Sometimes I would meet Cyn for lunch. We would take our sack lunches out under a shade tree and eat while we gossiped. Cyn knew the pressure I was under to be so perfect and provided somewhat of an outlet for sharing our thoughts. She was about to turn eighteen before school started and we talked about what we heard some of the looser girls talk about. We also talked about boys even though most of what we considered the 'hot' boys were out of high school. We unabashedly criticized our teachers and other girls we didn't like.

One day I mentioned Beverly, the best athlete in school.

Cyn caustically remarked, "I don't see how that fat cow could be that athletic. I guess she is a lesbian."

"What a nasty thing to say, Cyn. I have talked to her a lot. She is sweet. Yeah, she had huge breasts but she also loathes that boys and men make lewd suggestions to her. She even told me that she wants to get her breasts reduced in size."

"Well, she can will some of that boob fat to me, then." Cyn snickered and we both burst out laughing.

"Not that you need any, Lynette. Yeah, I guess that was just jealousy. How can one girl get so much boob and I am almost flat."

"You're not flat, Cyn." I encouraged.

"Spoken like a true do-good pastor's kid. Don't patronize me."

"I didn't mean to patronize you, Cyn. But you do have nice hips and you probably will never have a weight problem."

"Yay, Me." Cyn sarcastically said.

Cyn asked me about dating. She had been dating Richard for a few months. He was from about thirty miles away. They had met through friends of family. He was a short red-headed guy. He was cute but not necessarily handsome. Cyn shared that they were becoming closer and Richard wanted to get married. She was not going to fall for that even though she did like him a lot. She just didn't envision getting married the next summer after she finished high school. Richard was three years older than her and was ready to settle down. Plus, he wanted sex with Cyn. She told him to wait until she was of legal age before anything could happen. But she added that a month after school started, she would be eighteen. She said that with a little gleam in her eyes.

As the conversation progressed, she mentioned Bryan. Bryan was twenty and was going to a junior college. He was working summers and weekends at the tire store to make enough money to move on to a larger college. His mother and dad both worked but didn't have the money to pay his tuition. He had grown up working on the family farm that his dad had inherited from his grandparents. I had seen him around but he seemed too shy to approach me in any way. Not that I would feel comfortable being approached directly by a boy.

Cyn persisted in filling me in on all the details about Bryan. He had dated a girl briefly in high school. She had transferred in and only stayed one semester. She said that Bryan really liked her but when she transferred to a larger school, she cut things off with him. He was nice looking. About 5'-10". Fit and shy. While I wasn't shy around people, I couldn't pursue boys because according to my mother, girls didn't pursue boys. Boys did the asking. If a girl was too out front with a boy, he might think she was a slut. According to my mom, anyway.

I told Cyn that I really didn't know him because he was older than us and didn't run in the same circles. He was smart and independent minded. Instead of letting it drop, Cyn came to have lunch with me the next week and lo and behold, she had asked Bryan to have lunch with us. I was peeved at her for pressing the issue but couldn't be rude. We ate sandwiches and talked about his college. Cyn asked him about his brief courtship of his girlfriend. He seemed hurt and embarrassed that she would bring it up. I tried to lighten the mood by asking about his family. He knew I was a preacher's kid. Later on, he revealed that he really didn't want to have anything to do with me for that reason. It was not that he wasn't comfortable with religion. His family went to church but it was his mom who called the shots. His dad grew up in a different denomination and converted when he met and dated his mom.

After lunch, Bryan seemed to warm up a little bit and Cyn kept talking about Richard and his plans to marry her. She shared that she liked him but didn't want to get married so soon. Bryan quipped that it was very mature of her to think things through like that. He mentioned that he was having a tough time financially trying to put himself through college and he didn't see how anyone could provide for a wife while doing so. I agreed and told of my plans to go to the church supported school because my parents wanted me to. He was a little surprised that my goals were not a bit higher since I was such a good student. Then he apologized for putting down my choice of college. He looked embarrassed again and excused himself to return to work.

So, that is how I met Bryan. I chastised Cyn for setting that up but in the end our relationship flourished. He asked me out on a date and I accepted. He came over in his old beat up pickup and knocked on the door. My parents welcomed him in and tried their best to make him feel comfortable. They didn't mind me dating but admonished me to be careful. When we left to go to the movies, I apologized to Bryan about the overly friendly chatter. I told him that my parents were just nervous because they sort of had a plan for me. They never told me their plan but it didn't take a genius to figure it out. My mom was dating another guy when she went to that college. She met my dad and was immediately drawn to him. She eventually admitted that breaking up with her boyfriend was what "God wanted her to do". My dad was quite diligent to go out with her and she acquiesced very soon.

I didn't tell Bryan that whole story on our first date. It was just speculation on my part. Plus, my mother believed in 'Divine Signs', as she called them. We went on to the movies. He held my hand and bought popcorn and sodas. It was a rather mundane start to our relationship but everyone has a start in some way. When school started, Bryan went off to his senior college and I started my last year of high school. About a month into the semester, Cyn turned eighteen and was so happy. She pulled me aside one day and said she wanted to talk after school. Curious as I was, I was afraid she might tell me something that I shouldn't hear. Not that I would tell anyone else, but I had a sense of conflict between my upbringing and my desires as a woman. She told me exactly what I had expected after hearing about it the summer previously. She said that she and Richard had had sex.

I first tried the standard guilt trip about being pure and Christian before marriage.

"Oh, come on, Lynette. I know that is your church line, but really it was amazing. We had been so hot together anyway. It was time. I don't care what all the old people say. It was so natural. He was so sweet and careful with me. He used a condom and everything. I loved it."

I hardly knew what to say to her. I didn't want to be mean to her. She was my friend, after all. Inside, I became excited thinking about sex for the first time. According to my parents time line, I suspected that I was to go to college, meet a divinity student, start dating him, get married just before he graduated, work while he went to seminary and have kids once he got his first church. I just knew that was the plan. My mom seemed to point to her courtship as the most fulfilling and godly thing that ever happened to her.

I tried not to reflect on that too much as I talked to Cyn. I knew Richard and knew he was a nice guy. The fact that he waited until she felt comfortable was really very kind of him. Most sex crazed boys would drop a prude and find a willing girl. It was the first time that I considered a relationship that was not exactly what my parents said should happen. I knew several girls who had gotten married right out of high school and suspected that their upbringing had led them to tell the boyfriend, 'no ring, no sex'. There was something to be said for guys like Richard who wanted sex and loved the girl but waited until marriage.

Bryan and I had dated part of the summer and went out on weekends when he was home from college. We had only progressed to kissing. We hadn't even French kissed. My parents pretty much expected me to ask him to go to church with me so as always, I was the dutiful daughter and invited him. Once it became clear that he didn't really have a church affiliation yet, my dad really started preaching to him. It was supposed to be ambiguous to all young people but Bryan knew that he was expected to accept our religion in order to be allowed to keep dating me. Looking back, I wish Bryan had seen the downside of that and bolted. But we were getting closer and I guess my parents decided that there was plenty of time for me to go to college and meet the 'godly boy' I was supposed to marry. If that plan didn't go right, I guess they though that converting Bryan would assure that I would be in no danger of having sex before marriage.

Bryan and I continued to date when he came home. Cyn kept me up to date about her newly found sex life. She and Richard were having sex all the time. She kept telling me that I didn't know what I was missing. Sometimes in church she would look at me and smile. I knew what it meant. I wondered how she could keep up the deeply religious talk while still having uninhibited sex outside of marriage. She finally told me that both she and Richard both felt that it was the Lord's will and they would eventually get married. About that time, Richard decided that he would join the Navy. It was a blow to Cynthia but he wasn't going off until the end of the school year. He wanted to get married before he left for the training camp.

It rang kind of hollow to me even though I was trained and encouraged to talk this way. I wondered if my parents had had sex before they got married. I remembered my mom saying that she broke up with her longtime boyfriend because she thought it was the Lord's will. I knew that I shouldn't be thinking these thoughts. My parents love me and want the best for me. It was just that I was beginning to see the hypocrisy in some of my religious upbringing. About mid semester, one of the black football players asked Cyn to the end of year banquet that was for the team, coaches and their dates. Cyn had no prejudice at all. In fact, her mom was a welfare worker and Cyn was exposed to many black people when she went places with her mom.

Carter, the boy who asked her out, knew she was dating someone, but he assured her he just needed a date and having been around her a lot in class and extracurricular events, he thought of her first. I asked her if she really wanted to do that.

"Well," Cyn said. "He is tall, well-built and nice. I like him."

"So did you tell him that you would go with him?"

Well, no. Sort of, I guess. I told him that he might want to ask another girl if he had romance in mind."

"That sounds like a wishy-washy response. Not a very firm no. So, what are you going to do?"

"Well, he kept asking me and I sort of said, Yes."

"That's definitely not a NO."

"My parents don't mind. You know my mom works with a great amount of black women mostly who are single parents and she has a lot of empathy for them. Not that Robert is from a one parent home or anything. I told my mom and she thought it would be okay. Anyway, it would be a sure sign that we were not racist."

"No one said anything about racism, Cyn. I am talking about your relationship with Richard. Does he know?"

"No. It is a school event. Richard has his own circle of friends also."

"So, if it is so up and up, why don't you tell Richard?"

"He doesn't need to know. It is not a problem with our relationship. We go out with friends of all colors. Why? Are you prejudiced?"

"Cyn, how dare you. Put that off on me. Of course, I am not prejudiced."

"Oh, yeah? How many black people are in our church?"

"Uh," I stammered. "It is a small town and people go to churches that they feel comfortable at. I have heard that most black churches worship in a rather rowdy way. I don't think our church would be a choice of that many black people. They are welcome anyway and we do have black visitors occasionally."

"Strike up the band for inclusivity, Lynette."

The conversation was getting too heavy. Cyn laughed after she made the last remark. I didn't know how to take it at first. Then I realized she was being facetious. I laughed along with her. We hugged and made up quickly.

"Look, Lynette, I know what you mean. I just don't see how going to the banquet with Robert is a big deal."

"Well, I guess if you put it that way, do what you think best. I don't know if Bryan would feel good about me dating another guy. Even if it is just a banquet. I would be afraid to ask him."

"Exactly." Cyn replied. "See why I didn't ask Richard? Innocent things don't need to be discussed. Besides, I am not doing anything wrong to begin with. We will go to the banquet, have a nice time and that will be that. A lot of our classmates are going with black guys also. A few are even dating black guys for real."