Elizabeth Ch. 08: Truce

It was Sunday morning, and Elizabeth and her husband John were in their Sunday best at the 9 o'clock church service. Elizabeth wore a long, floral dress, pink with blue flowers, and she had her hair plaited across her right shoulder. John was dressed in a shirt and tie, and from the neck up he looked good, like the man she remembered marrying so many years ago. Then her eyes strayed down to his paunch hanging over his too tight belt line. She sighed.

They stood for the hymn and watched Charlotte lead the choir. She looked a perfect angel in her long blue robe and her impeccably coiffed hair. She and John each sang from their hymnals, and Elizabeth pictured Charlotte's lithe, graceful nude body. She leaned forward so far that she nearly dropped her book.

When the service concluded, Elizabeth told John that she had to go and catch up with Charlotte, and that she would meet him down at the reception, after the children service. John left to go teach his Sunday school class.

Elizabeth watched Charlotte get onto the first floor church elevator, now out of her robe and wearing a knee length ivory shift, returning to her office before leading the next worship service. Elizabeth quickly took the stairs to the third floor, and saw Charlotte's blonde curls as she entered her office at the end of the hall.

Elizabeth peeked around the doorframe to see Charlotte tidying papers on her desk, her back to the door. She looked around the hallway, and then briskly walked through the door, shutting it behind her.

Charlotte whirled around as she heard the door shut. "Elizabeth! You startled me!! What is up, girlfriend?"

Elizabeth slowly walked to the center of the room, and stared Charlotte directly in the face. Charlotte, nearly six inches shorter than Elizabeth, and very thin, shrunk from her self-assured pose.

"Take off your dress."

Charlotte gasped and her eyes went wide. "Is everything all right? Listen, I know what we did was a little out of character and unusual, but we can't just go and do it anytime, I have to get back to church!"

"Take off your dress."

"You need to stop and think about what you're doing, Elizabeth. What we did was to help you explore your body, it's not meant to be your whole life. Ask yourself, 'what would Jesus do?'"

Elizabeth reached out and put her strong hand at the base of Charlotte's neck, one thumb on her throat. She put just enough pressure to send her message.

Charlotte's eyes welled up with tears.

Elizabeth stared into them. "Jesus said he would cast out the Jezebels onto a bed of suffering. Do you remember that, from Revelations? Do you remember what he said about harlotry? Do you ever stop and ask about, what happens when you fuck one of your counseling clients and fellow church members when you know they're vulnerable and film it and put it on the Internet? Do you know what those men said about me on that video? Do you? Take off your dress!"

Charlotte looked away. She was quivering all over. She found the zipper for her formfitting ivory dress, and slowly brought it down, parting it in front of her, revealing her thin frame, small breasts, and alabaster skin.

Elizabeth had not released her grip on Charlotte's throat. "When I found out what you did, I couldn't think about anything. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't talk to my kids. I couldn't talk to my husband. You're playing games with my life. You've made me into something shameful. And you have to pay for that. Take off your bra and underpants. And turn around."

Charlotte's face and chest turned red, as she complied, displaying her bright pink nipples, cherry red on the marble of her skin. She revealed her small crotch, adorned with a thatch of brown hair. She turned around to face the desk.

Elizabeth took Charlotte by the back of the neck, and pushed her head down, so that it was against the table. Charlotte's ass and pussy were open and up in the air.

Charlotte sobbed. "Elizabeth, please, whatever you're going to do, I want you to remember that you're a good person. I want you to remember that, yes, I shouldn't have done that to you. I took something that was a moment of discovery for you, and I made it into part of a game that Darcie and I were playing, and that was wrong. But if you keep going like this, hurting me in the way that I hurt you, it's never going to stop. Do you think that you're going to kill this thing in you by getting back at me? You're not. We believe in a faith that's about forgiveness and change. We believe there's no one beyond redemption. I want you to sit down, and let's talk about this, OK?"

As Charlotte spoke, Elizabeth's grasp loosened. She felt the tension and rage drain from her. She took a step back, and sat down on the sofa. Charlotte stood up and turned around, wiped her nose and her mouth, and then found her underpants. She put them back on, and then her dress.

"Thank you," said Charlotte. She sat down on her chair and faced Elizabeth, whose face was a mass of tears.

"Everything is just falling apart," Elizabeth said. "I don't know how to get back."

"An eye for an eye makes the world go blind. Let's talk about this."

"I was always taught, 'he who is without sin, cast the first stone,' but what do you do when you're the one being stoned? Oh my god, what was I going to do?"

"Elizabeth, I don't know what the best thing to do is. None of us do. But we just have to talk to each other and ask each other what we want. That's the only way we're going to stop hurting each other and actually enjoy our lives together."

She reached out and she and Elizabeth embraced, both weeping, reconciled.