Not Bible Camp Ch. 03

She said she knew it sounded silly but it was really important that any counselor could look and see at a distance what color wristband we had on. It was more important than being able to see the individual person. This was something they'd explain eventually but for now this was an important rule and she hoped we understood.

Then she said she'd fetch us both new wristbands, and to sit tight. Well, she must have had a stash in the pantry or somewhere close, cause she wasn't gone but two minutes. Then she suggested Jill might like an escort back to her cabin for rest time, and that I'd be a good choice.

I don't know why I'd never thought of doing that. I feel silly, needing all this help just to court a girl, but then neither Mom nor Dad bothered telling me this stuff.

So on the way back Jill started grousing about having flour all over her, which I pointed out at least they gave us both hairnets, so it got mostly on our clothes and faces. She said she was still gonna ask if she could shower this evening, even though usually that's just done the night before church. She had a point. I mean, dirt is dirt, but flour and dough clumps and cakes something awful, and I'm not sure a dip in the lake is enough.

Anyway, we got to her cabin, and I wondered if it was time for me to try out some of what I learned, but before I could pull myself together she gave me a big old hug and said kind of soft in my ear, "Don't oversleep. I want to see more of you tomorrow."

Then she went inside her cabin, and all I could think of was how stupid I felt, not grabbing hold of her as tight as I could, and not letting her go, just wrapping my arms around that scrawny little body. But that would have gone wrong. I know it. She'd have squealed like I was giving her an Indian burn or something and I'd have felt a real fool then.

On the way to my cabin I saw Pete and Dave. I waved, and they said, "Hi," but it looked like they were heading somewhere important, and it wasn't their cabin.

I could see they had green wristbands on, which surprised me. If they're sneaking pictures of girls while they're bathing and fixing up guys with the fast girls -- well, it ain't nice to call someone a pornographer or a pimp but I think I'd need glasses to see the difference.

But they're the only campers who took the trouble to make friends, not counting Jill, so I feel bad for judging them. But if the staff thinks their development is right alongside me or Jill's, I wonder how discerning they can be. Or maybe I have a bigger thorn in my flesh than I realized, but that means Jill does too, and I can't think what it could be.

I guess I did give into temptation by looking at those pictures, but that shouldn't break the camel's back if I got a good camel. They told us Day One we should be able to handle nakedness; the reason Adam and Eve put on the fig leaves was to cover their shame, not cause naked people are more sinful than people with clothes on.

But as long as they won't tell us what the colors mean, I guess all I can do is guess, so there isn't any point in keeping it up.

Me and Counselor Jameson had a good talk. I showed her how I'd been working on dialogue, and she gave me a couple of plays to look over: Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, and The Odd Couple, by Neil Simon.

Then I told her how I kind of blanked out on that relaxation exercise. She said that wasn't a bit unusual and it shows I have aptitude for what she called "neuro-linguistic programming" which just means I'm good at getting my brain to do what I tell it, which sounds good.

She said since I couldn't remember my safe place, I should try the exercise again during morning meditation instead of whatever the assigned thought is. She also said she wanted to wait a couple of days before working on "increasing and projecting my confidence level" is the way she put it.

She said for now I should just be as tender, gentle and open as I possibly could with Jill, and be glad that she likes being treated respectfully, cause women that like being treated like trash aren't worth my time.

I never thought so much could happen to me in a couple of weeks. It almost feels like up till now I'd never really done anything. I guess I've been kind of sheltered.

June 20

Well, I don't know how well the relaxation stuff worked when I tried it last night. I think I conked out as soon as my head hit the pillow. At least I was up on time today, feeling pretty rested.

I did wonder a bit if that stuff I'm taking to get to sleep might be jiggering my memory, and maybe even made me oversleep yesterday morning, but I asked Counselor Jameson and she said it was all-natural and besides it didn't make me oversleep before. I guess she had a point there. She seems to know more about this stuff than I do, anyway.

Some good news is that Jill gave me the biggest smile when I showed up for breakfast, and it made me feel, I don't know, kind of glowy. Even though they give us sunblock, Jill's face is even more freckled than when I met her, and when she smiles there's something about the way they get pushed around on her face, I just hope I don't stare too much when I notice things like that.

She also has a bottom tooth -- I think it's one of the canines, but I don't know beans about teeth -- anyway, it sticks forward more than the others do, and I had to catch myself before I found myself telling her about me noticing this stuff, about how I could get used to just looking at her, and noticing things, but then I have to remind myself she may not want me highlighting every little detail of her features, and it makes it tough, cause I know I need to tell her I like looking at her, but if she asks, What at? Well, anything I say is apt to come out wrong.

I sure do like looking at her naked, but I'm not fool enough to tell her that. Is it OK to like looking at someone cause they look all scrawny and helpless? I see her all wet and skinny and I just want to wrap her in something warm and wrap myself in it, too.

It dawned on me that before Jill I never gave all that much thought to what a man and a woman actually do. I just sort of figured if you were naked and touching each other, you were basically having sex, and if you were married it was OK, and if you weren't it wasn't.

But there's things you can do even with clothes on that sure feel like sex. I guess you could argue it what I did with Counselor Jameson that triggered me off was sex, but neither one of us meant it to happen that way, so anybody who says we sinned might want to think twice and not judge the next time.

But I have to wonder: if a fellow gets so worked up he just starts spouting off if he only touches a woman, well, maybe that ain't the best way to be. A man has to ease off the pressure some way. I don't think it's quite the same with women, but Counselor Jameson says it's not as different as I might think.

I don't quite know what made me go off in a tangent like that. Lately every time I think about Jill it just seems my mind ends up going all over the place, but then it comes back, more and more, to sex. I don't mean I get detailed fantasies about having sex with her, but the way I think of her is sexual. And I just keep sneaking peeks at that dang picture.

Why can't I keep my head straight? Just now, just when I was supposed to be writing about what happened today, what do you think I was doing?

It was like I was playing a movie in my head. It starts out with that picture of Jill, all wet and naked, and a look on her face that's just kind of guarded, like she's not sure she's happy about standing around naked with a bunch of girls she doesn't know, in the outdoors and everything.

And then I show up. And I kind of pictured that smile she gave me this morning, but on her naked self, kind of plastered on there, and I think a smile like that if you come on someone just completely open to the wind, it just seems more sincere, somehow.

If you're happy that I saw you without any clothes on, you must not have too much you want to hide from me, is my guess. And the things I'd like to do to that girl! That sounds pretty aggressive, come to think on it. But I just mean I want to get my hands on her.

I want to run my fingers on her skin, through her hair. I want to feel her damp skin when she comes out of the lake. I want to know what her mouth tastes like. I want to know what her lips feel like. I want to know what it feels like to touch breasts that small, and if it's true that girls' nipples poke out like daggers when they're cold. I want to grab her so tight she squeaks, and then hold her so gentle she purrs.

And I want her to want that.

I've always heard it's a woman's job to say 'No,' which I think leads to women thinking they need to act like they don't even want it! What man wants that? If God wants us both to wait, that should mean we both have to try. If I don't act like a gentleman, Jill can slap my face. But if I don't even tempt her...well, that's depressing and it's too easy to believe.

I guess that's why confidence is so important. As log as I think of myself as someone Jill's good enough to put up with, and maybe someone she'll settle for, what kind of man can I be for her?

I don't really have any time to write more tonight. I spent so much time woolgathering, and more stuff happened today, but I'll have to wait to write about it.

June 21

I really don't know what was wrong with me last night. I felt awful peculiar, but I sure didn't feel sick. Like I wrote before, I felt all over the place. Spread out, kind of.

Since I need to catch up, I decided on my own to try writing stuff throughout the day instead of waiting till the end to sort it all out. Nobody said I couldn't, but I'm still a bit nervous that I'm not exactly following instructions.

For now, I'm just gonna try to catch up on what happened yesterday, cause otherwise yesterday and today might not be able to keep track of each other, if you know what I mean. Heck, it's all I can do to keep 'em straight, and it happened to me!

So first off, me and Jill didn't talk all that much at breakfast. All I really said to her was, "Man! Your smile just made my day!" Well, she didn't say much after that, but I gotta say she sure can blush. (Don't worry; I didn't tell her that.)

Her smile got kind of quiet after that, but she'd give me little looks every so often, and once, when she'd dropped her fork, I grabbed it and handed it back to her, just so I could brush her hand.

That's why it was so weird when I just went off into this daydream when I was trying to write about it later. When she was there, I wasn't drifting off anywhere. It felt like time went by quick all right, but not cause I was somewhere else.

Anyhow, during our morning meditation assignment, we've always been seated by cabin. I never mentioned my cabin mates, George, Fred and Rob, mainly cause they don't talk much -- not to me, anyway. We don't really even spend that much time in the cabins, except when it's rest period or sleep period, and we're not supposed to talk, then.

Come to think on it, it is a bit odd, none of us coming out with more than the odd word, but I guess I just assumed we were all a little shy, and no one really tried to break the ice, and then we all got busy.

Anyway, now that we're all color coded, we've all started sitting with our own group. I was glad at this, cause I could spend that much more time with Jill, even if we have to spend the whole time listening, and even though it doesn't really matter to me now that I get to use my meditation time for my own project, still it was nice sitting by her for a little longer, and when you're supposed to keep quiet it takes all the worry out of thinking up things to say, which is nice.

And even though it wasn't something I had to pay attention to, it was interesting to hear about the rape of Dinah and how they killed the whole tribe off after they got circumcised. The commentary on it was pretty interesting too.

Counselor Steele said near as it's been translated, the sex Dinah had with Shechem was consensual, which nowadays doesn't equate to what we think of as rape but back then sure did. He said it was because a woman's virginity wasn't regarded as her property but her family's, and they were the ones to decide who to give it to.

He pointed out that this was before both the Mosaic law and the rule of grace, and so most scholars would argue this doesn't apply now. He said if we're all one in the Holy Spirit, if we're all condemned under the same law, redeemed by the same blood, and set free by the same spirit, then we can't be beholden to any other human. The command to obey your parents is for when you're a child; when you grow up, you're to make your own decisions as the spirit guides you.

He said our sexuality was a gift from God, and it was given to each one of us for our own benefit, not as an asset for our families to barter with.

I'll write more in a bit. Jill didn't seem to mind me writing during breakfast, but I better cool it until I get some time by myself.

*****

All right, no one's around to tell me not to write during meditation, but if anybody says something, I'll just say I'm getting my thoughts on paper or some such. I gotta say, for all that we're supposed to be keeping track of our spiritual progress on these things, nobody's ever asked to look at it. It's nice to have privacy, but how do they know we aren't keeping secrets? I guess they don't.

Anyway, I did the relaxation stuff yesterday instead of the assigned meditation and it was the first time I tried it wide awake. It was real peculiar. You're supposed to keep your eyes closed so you can get a good look at what kind of pictures your mind throws up. And guess what mine were?

You guessed it, Jill! That's how I guess I got those pictures jumbled together, cause half the time I was seeing her naked, and half the time I was seeing that big old smile, and the rest of it were those almost secret smiles she was giving me, which I know half plus half plus some is more than one, but I'm not doing figures here.

Well, I couldn't count it as a success. After all, I have pictures of her flashing in my mind all the time, and I don't feel all that peaceful. So I decided I had to discuss it with Counselor Jameson, which I'll get to in a bit. I don't want to get ahead of myself, and I probably won't get any more spare time until after work duty, so I'll write more then.

*****

Although this is supposed to be rest time as long as we're on our bunks and keep quiet there's no real rules about what we can and can't do (OK no masturbation but that's all the time and besides, I couldn't do it during the day, with a bunch of guys around me; that would just be too weird).

Lots of times I'm tired enough after work period that all I want to do is rest but I feel pretty energetic today. Anyhow, yesterday's work duty was something I've never done before. There's a big section of the garden that's herbs and spices of various kinds, and we had to prepare them so they can be used for cooking.

Some of the stuff, like rosemary and cilantro, is getting used in the next few days. Some stuff, like the cayenne peppers and the cumin seeds, had to be set to dry. And the sage needed to be rubbed, and -- well, I'm not going to get into all of it.

Anyway, I told Jill that maybe I ought to fix her dinner when I get a chance and she smiled and said she liked me too much to make me eat her cooking so I couldn't expect her to return the favor.

So I said, without even really thinking, "You could probably make me pretty happy if I can just keep making you smile," and she got pretty red. I almost wanted to tease her about it but then I thought she might not think it was that funny so I just said, "Someday maybe you won't be embarrassed around me," and she said, "But then you might worry I don't like you any more."

I wanted to kiss her then so bad. I guess I never realized before how little confidence I have. I don't even remember what I said next. It was some corny joke or some such nonsense. It lightened the mood, but I felt so...gutless. Maybe she even wanted me to kiss her.

I'm gonna give it a rest and start writing again a little later. I didn't know writing that down was gonna make me upset all over again. But I didn't think I could just leave it out, either.

*****

So then there was my writing workshop. Which doesn't really seem like a workshop cause we don't discuss anything as a group. Counselor Jameson just tells us what she wants us to focus on in writing our screenplays, and then she talks with each person individually to see how we're doing.

The outline wasn't that hard, and writing the visual aspects of the scenes isn't that difficult, it just takes time. I figure a lot of stuff doesn't even need to be written down. For instance, if two characters are in a meadow, I don't need to describe the flowers, or the wind in the grass, cause that stuff will show up whether I write it or not.

So the only thing I really had to work on was dialogue. I can write down stuff people actually say, but making up stuff that sounds like what people might say, I'm still working on that.

Anyway, this workshop was like all the rest, and nothing really interesting happened. It's when they send us out to work on our projects that things have been happening.

Of course, I wasn't by myself, and the project I've been working on didn't have anything to do with the workshop, but as long as I'm with a counselor, I assume it's OK.

Anyway, I went out on a limb with Counselor Jameson. I told her what happened when I tried to use the relaxation techniques, and then (and this was scary) I told her about the picture, not the one of her, but the one of Jill.

I wouldn't say how I got it, even considered saying someone had given it to me anonymously, but then figured there was no point coming out with the truth if I was just going to add a bunch of lies to it, and I sure wasn't going to be a snitch, so I just hoped she wouldn't push.

Well, she didn't, not in that direction, anyway. She said, real serious, "Chris, are you using this picture for masturbation?"

And I said "No!" so loud I kind of startled myself. But then I admitted I had started fantasizing about Jill naked and even though nobody had told me not to I was worried I was bending the rules hard enough to put a crimp in them.

Then I said it was kind of like torture because I still couldn't get up the nerve to kiss her for real and the pictures get in my way when I'm trying to do relaxation and if I can't get that right then it's all one big circle.

She said, "Obviously we need to get you past this. Don't worry too much about the picture. If you didn't have it, some other image would be causing you the same problems."

I nodded, even though I wasn't at all sure that was the case.

She kept talking. "One thing you can do is fill your mind with an image that's easy to concentrate on, and that isn't counterproductive."

She went to a desk in the corner and looked in one of its drawers. Then she picked something out of it and brought it over to me.

It was a small piece of wood with a weird symbol painted on it. It looked like someone had taken two fat apostrophes, one white and one black, and wedged them together. Somehow they fit perfectly to make a circle.

She explained. "This is a yin-yang symbol. It's a Chinese symbol that means wholeness, completion, and change. You should stare at it until you can hold the image in your head without too much effort."

I was still puzzled but I nodded again. I hoped she wouldn't quiz me to make sure I understood, cause I'd fail.

"Do you remember the words I told you to say?"

This time when I nodded, I wasn't bluffing. "Relaxed. Calm. Tranquil."