Pastoral Counseling

I can tell you how I got involved with the church. As a younger man I was no good, well I'm still no good but it doesn't show as much now. I was a criminal, basically, I called myself a salesman but my talent was getting people to spend money for things they didn't want or need, and sometimes they were things that didn't exactly exist. I am not alone in that, and was not an outstandingly bad person, I just got my kicks out of manipulating people into giving me their money. I worked from the assumption that they were all a bunch of fucking idiots, and they always proved me right. Along the way I married a proper lady who was naive enough to provide the perfect cover for me and I lived a sort of double life for a few years. If I fucked her every once in a while and kept money in a checking account for her she didn't bother me about my business.

There was a little problem though when blockchain started becoming a thing and some people's investments disappeared. The police had some questions that were hard to answer and I had to change my style suddenly. For this I turned to the church. They love nothing better than a sinner seeking redemption and all that shit, they don't ask a lot of questions, and it was nothing to learn to talk their talk. I just about memorized the Bible before I realized it didn't matter, nobody else knew what was in it anyway. I tried a few churches and watched the preachers take a few quotes, work them into a story the people would accept, and pass the plate; it was a game I was well familiar with.

Within a couple of months I had the pattern down, and I got a nice normal-looking office job and joined a neat little hometown congregation where I knew a few people going back to childhood. My wife was overjoyed, having had some doubts about where the money was coming from and noticing a couple of inconsistencies over the years. Olivia loved dressing up and going to services on Sundays, and was happy to see me playing it straight. Not that I gave a fuck what she thought, but life was easier if she played along with the deal, and she did that better if she believed it. There is nothing more cleansing for your reputation than "being seen with your wife." Everything in our new life was perfectly superficial, no difficult questions came up, the job I fell into was great, by which I mean easy, it paid pretty well, and I lived a pure-looking life.

After I'd been at the church for a few months the pastor decided there was a need for marriage discussion meetings during the week, something discreet where couples could go to talk in a group about their problems and offer solutions to each other, that sort of thing. I think there must be some preacher newsletter or something where they get these ideas. It would be held at lunch when kids would be in school and members of the congregation could park at the church in relative anonymity while everybody was at work. The pastor lived in the next county, an hour's drive each way, so he wanted someone local from the congregation to lead these "couples' worship groups" on Wednesdays. Nobody in the congregation knows the New Testament like I do, and everybody knows me and respects me, I look responsible and honest and so tag, I was it. I had two or three weeks to get ready for it and line some people up to get it started. I talked to Ted Roberts, suggested that he might like to attend. Brendan Phelps wasn't interested at first but I talked him into it.

You should see Ted's wife. As we used to say in high school, she didn't get that round mouth from eating Cheerios. She sort of flaunts it, of course my wife was suspicious when she found out Barbie Roberts was attending the group, but what can she say? I am not going to do anything with Barbie. She's nothing but trouble. She can bring the whole game, the cleavage, the legs, she can try as hard as she wants and I hope she does. I know what side my bread is buttered on. Women like her are Trouble with a capital T.

Brendan's wife Tracy, now, that's different. I've hung out with Brendan sometimes, ever since high school, and I remembered her from school too but didn't really know her. I had been surprised when I saw her and her husband coming to this church, at first I didn't make all the connections. Brendan used to drink a little and I lost touch but I had heard he straightened out and turned into a model husband and father. Tracy was even straighter than him, a serious true believer, a religious girl who really did try to live by the Good Book, and as far as I knew neither of them ever strayed from the straight and narrow.

I remember one time after services Tracy was standing next to me, talking about her kids and accidentally rubbing her tits against my arm, smiling innocently at me. I was sure she simply didn't feel it but I sure did; she'd tuned out that kind of thing years earlier and forgot it existed. I was thinking she might be an interesting one, I might have to do some individual counseling with Tracy, if you know what I mean. She knows that even Jesus would never be able to forgive her if she acted on her absolutely normal sinful fantasies. But she could talk about them in the group, share herself, everybody knows things are better if you talk about your feelings, and everybody has feelings and fantasies. We don't "confess our sins" at this church as a matter of dogma, but I'd say it's good for you to talk things out sometimes, and I was sure the pastor would approve as long as he was spared the details.

I figured Olivia wouldn't mind if I came home wound up tighter'n a drum now and then after listening to Tracy's tearful admissions and jumped her bones passionately as soon as the kids were quiet. We're once-a-weekers, and out of consideration for her I try to vary the day of the week. It sounds tacky to say, 'we have sex on Wednesdays,' don't you think? Much better to say, sometimes we just can't help ourselves and we have to go at it, it might be any night of the week. That's what Olivia thinks happens, my passion for her is unstoppable, uh huh. Fine, I'll give her something to brag to her girlfriends about. Oh well, she does her job, she makes me look respectable.

Sure enough, Tracy and Brendan started coming to the noontime worship group on Wednesdays; his office is not far away and he would duck into the church for an hour of prayer and discussion. Tracy worked from home and was easily able to make her own schedule. My office was cool about these things, they wouldn't care if you missed an hour before or after lunch, or both, as long as you made it to your meetings and got your work done. There were more than a few three-martini lunches in that company, but the bottom line was good and everybody was happy. There were other couples who attended regularly, and we had people who would stop in occasionally. Brendan enjoyed giving the others advice, based on his wonderful marriage experience. By the way, just to be clear, his happy life is my nightmare.

When we talked about things like sin and temptation the stories were pretty dull, all the way around. Most started with "when I was younger" and went into drinking some beer or getting high, or maybe a little sexual experimentation on a date. But people seemed to feel purged afterwards. I think it made them feel better to participate in a group where everybody was about the same as them, white-bread Christians with nothing much to hide.

Brendan got busy at work and Tracy started coming without him. We'd have five or six couples some weeks, and other times just Tracy and one other regular couple, and sometimes one or two others, who rotated among the congregation. The meetings were informal and there was usually a bit of laughter as people reported the dumb things they had done in their lives. It mostly seemed silly in retrospect.

We set our folding chairs in a circle and prayed and talked. Tracy was perfect in her fashionable but modest dresses, with her perfect makeup and her hair always freshy done. With Brendan gone she did not complain about her marriage, and for a while she tried to lecture the other couples like he had done, but she was not as convincing as he was. I could sense that she had some doubts about all of it.

And eventually there was a week where Tracy was the only one who showed up. We had the church to ourselves, with our folding chairs in the Luke Room, which was used for Sunday school and also I think the Knit 'n' Prayer Circle met in that room on Thursday evenings.

"Looks like you're the only one today," I said, sitting at the front of the circle. She was standing in the doorway, looking around the room.

"Yeah, looks like it," she said. "Well, we could cancel it."

"Is that what you want to do?"

"No, not really," she said.

I let the silence suffocate her for a while. "Well then, have a seat," I said.

She waited and then sat down, leaving several chairs between us. I had arranged them as usual, not knowing what kind of attendance we'd have.

"Tracy, I have long felt that there is something on your mind," I said, acting in my role as group leader. "Maybe something you didn't want to talk about in front of the others."

She looked at me as if she was in a panic, then regained her composure. "Why would you say that?"

"I don't know," I said. "Just a feeling."

"A feeling, huh." She looked down at her fingers. "I get feelings sometimes, too."

Now we were getting somewhere. There was a rustling in my Dockers as I looked at her with a sympathetic expression.

"What kind of feelings?"

"God, Doc, I don't even know where to start." She looked me in the eye. "You didn't know me in high school."

"No, I was a few years ahead of you." One thing about Mark's Chapel, we are almost all locals, and most of us went to Rembrandt High School, though not all at the same time. "Did you enjoy high school?"

"I fucking hated it." she said.

"Hmm," I had never heard her talk like that. But I liked it.

"I was a good girl in high school," she said. "I did what I was supposed to do."

"Well those can be difficult times," I said, playing my part. "Kids that age don't know what they're getting into."

"Well I can tell you what I was getting into," she said. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I met Brendan. and he wanted to, you know, go all the way, but we waited."

"Good," I said.

"No, not good. It wasn't worth waiting for."

"Oh." She had me there. I actually did not know what to say.

"And now it's too late."

"Too late for what?"

"I don't even know what I missed, but it's too late to go back and do it all over again."

"I know it's not polite to ask, but how old are you?"

"I'll be thirty two next month."

"Happy birthday," I said. "And how is that too late for anything?"

She shot me a look. "Look at my life. I've got Brendan, and he's wonderful of course, and the two kids, and I love them."

"Yes, you've got a good life."

"Okay, Doc, I am going to confess something to you, and you need to swear that it goes nowhere."

"Tracy, what we say here is private."

"Okay, here goes. For the last, maybe six months, I have been watching porn on the computer."

I stifled a laugh. "Watching porn, huh? And you feel guilty about that?"

Now she was the one who laughed. "Guilty, ha. No, I feel jealous."

"Jealous of who?"

"I watch those women, and some of them are just sluts doing it for the money, but a lot of them, I can tell they are having the time of their lives. I watch what they do and I imagine it's me, and it will never be me."

My Dockers were stretching tight now. "I see," I said. "What kinds of things are they doing?"

She laughed at me again. "Doc, I think you know what they do."

"Tracy, I wasn't born yesterday, I have seen some of the stuff on the Internet."

"So you know."

"I don't know what you imagine doing," I said. It was like ping pong, each of us knocking the ball back to the other.

She paused. "I feel funny saying this, but here we go. Doc, did you know I have never sucked a cock?"

I could not stop a smile from flitting across my lips. "I see. Is that it?"

"No, that's not it," she said. "I haven't done anything. I have never been fucked in the ass. I have never been with two men at the same time, or with another woman. I have never fucking masturbated." She was watching my face now. "Doctah, I have never had anyone lick my pussy. I have never even been fucked from behind. I have never let a man see any part of my body in public or even gone out in a sexy outfit, I have never had sex with a stranger. Nothing. I have never done anything."

"I see," I said. "Maybe you could talk with Brendan about trying some new things."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I see. Well I wouldn't want to suggest that you should find someone safe to, uh, experiment with."

"Like I haven't daydreamed about that," she said.

"What if Brendan found out?"

"Fuck Brendan," she said. "Well, not really, I love him, but yeah, fuck him, this isn't about him."

"Let's try something right now," I said. "While we talk."

"Try what?"

"While you're sitting there, open your legs and let me see your panties."

Those words set off the longest minute in the history of the world. Seconds ticked off like months as she stared at me. It's really nothing, some panties. I knew there was a reason she was telling me these things, and I was not going to fuck this up. I could tell what she wanted and was making it easy for her.

Then slowly, moving like molasses, she shifted in her chair. Those long legs slowly separated while she stared defiantly at my face. A stretch of silky panties came into view under her skirt, and she spread her legs wider.

"Lean back," I said, "Let me have a look at you."

She wanted to resist, out of habit. She had learned that this kind of thing was demeaning, and yet it was something she wanted for herself. She leaned back in her chair with her long legs extending toward me, spread to display her panties. Her look was halfway between defiance and panic.

I took a long time to look her over.

"That is amazing," I finally said. "You are the sexiest thing I ever saw."

She started to cry.

"Unbutton the top buttons of that dress," I said.

She reached down and popped a few buttons open. The top of a lacy bra came into view as the fabric fell back. Tears were running down her cheeks.

"Two more."

She undid two more buttons, presenting me with fine mounds of luscious cleavage, and then leaned back again.

I stared at her.

"I have a throbbing hard-on," I said, calmly.

She didn't know what to say to that. I could see moisture starting to darken the satin of her panties.

"Let's get rid of those panties," I said, and without protesting she bent forward and slipped them off, put them into her purse, and returned to her position, legs spread, her arms resting at her sides.

She had thin blond pubic hair and her labia were swollen and moist.

"Tracy, it is incredible to see you like this." I leered at her, taking it all in. "Touch yourself," I said.

One hand came down and fell to her lap. She felt around and began rubbing herself gently. She had stopped crying.

"It feels good, doesn't it," I said, and I watched her explore herself. "Tell me Tracy, what would you like to do right now?"

Her eyes were getting hazy as she looked toward me. She laughed slightly and said, "I keep thinking about that throbbing hard-on."

"What about it."

"I want to see it."

"See it?"

"For now, yes, I just want to see it. Show me you're not lying about that."

I stood up from my folding chair and undid my belt, dropped my Dockers to my knees, and my underwear. I wasn't lying. My cock sprang out of its confinement, six humble inches of rock-hard lust, twanging in the air, a drop of clear viscous liquid drooling from the tip.

She stared at it. "That is amazing," she said.

"You're stealing my line," I said.

I pulled my pants up and zipped. "Okay, you saw it. At least you know I wasn't lying."

"No, stop," she said. "I want, I want to do something else."

"What is it?"

"Shit, Doc, I can hardly say it. Give me a second." She was sitting in the chair, her wet pussy exposed, her tits heaving under her formerly prim housedress, one hand still busily tickling her pussy. "Okay," she finally said. "I want to suck your cock."

"Do you know how?" I was fucking with her.

"I never have done it, but I have seen a million videos. I think I can figure it out."

I didn't want to hurry through this delicious moment. I said, "How's that going?"

"How's what going?"

"Playing with yourself."

"What do you mean, how's it going?" she asked. She seemed genuinely baffled by my question.

"Are you getting close?" I asked her.

"Close to what?"

"Are you getting close to an orgasm?"

She laughed out loud. "Sweetie, I don't even know what that is. Do you actually think I have had an orgasm? I mean, in my life?"

"I see," I said. I watched her for a minute. "So does that feel good?"

"I guess," she said. "It's no big thing."

"Let me do it," I said.

She pulled her hand off herself. My idea did not seem very practical with her sitting in a folding chair. I indicated the desk at the front of the room, which the Sunday school teachers used. "Come sit here," I said.

She was in too far to back out now. I had her sit on the desktop, putting her weight on it, and with a sweeping gesture I pushed her legs apart.

"Lean back," I said. "Make yourself comfortable." She put her elbows on the desk and rested her upper body on them, watching me closely.

"I'm going to touch you," I said. "Is that all right?"

"I guess I can't stop you."

"Yes you can. Tell me if you want me to touch your pussy or not."

There was a standoff for a few seconds and then she said, "I want you to."

I did not move, but looked her in the eye, creating a vacuum for the rest of the sentence to fall into.

"Okay," she said, "I want you to touch my pussy, okay?"

"Very good," I said.

I stood beside her and pulled her skirt up to display her vulva to me, and studied it for a few seconds. Then I put my hand on her thigh and swept it forward and back lightly, approaching nearer to her sensitive parts with each sweep. She shuddered slightly when I brushed her pubic hair, and I stopped sweeping. I felt around with my fingertips, getting to know the terrain -- every pussy is different, they all work differently, you have to learn about each one. Usually it is best to try things and see what kind of reaction you get. You could ask, but most women don't know what they like, mainly -- as in this instance -- because they never knew anyone who knew what to do.

I stroked around her labia for a while and rested a fingertip at the opening of her vagina, which got a good reaction, a sigh and a slight shift in her thighs. I took her labia between my fingers and squeezed them together, began rolling the whole bundle back and forth, and her breathing quickened -- this is a good technique that sort of engages everything indirectly. Slowly I morphed that into a motion that brought my index finger into contact with her clitoris.

She jerked a little when I first touched it, then looked at me with a strange twisted smile. It was a moment of realization for her, a first hint of what she had been missing all these years. I touched her vagina to get some lubrication on my fingers and rubbed her clitoris lightly and she closed her eyes.

"I don't know what that is," she said.

"What what is?"

"This feeling."

"This is the new you," I said. I continued to rub her clitoris and increased my fingers' pressure on it. She leaned back more comfortably, eyes closed, and spread her legs wider for me.

Then it hit her.

It was not the most spectacular orgasm as I have ever seen but it was a good one. She was squirming and moaning and thrusting into my hand, and as it subsided she looked up at my face appreciatively, like we were partners in crime who had just pulled one off. Which was not entirely inaccurate.