Ruined

"Thank you," Travis said with a sigh of relief. "I'm sure you'll come up with a better idea, but I was thinking that if you could get Abigail to sit down with me and let me explain everything until she understood, she might talk to Delilah for me."

"I don't know if that will work," said Myra, "because she's seen the online video, and Grace did a wonderful job of making everyone who sees it think you were enjoying yourself -- including me."

Travis wanted to scream, but he spoke calmly.

"You know the DVD I just showed you? That's a copy I made for you. You've been so kind. I thought you might want to watch it again."

Myra looked at him.

"Thank you, Travis. How thoughtful of you! I will treasure it. Oh my god! This has shaken all brains out of my head. How stupid I am!

"You're absolutely right. I'll get Abigail to watch it. Once she's seen the truth, she'll be happy to help you get to Delilah."

"I hope you're right," he said. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was right. You are an angel. How can I ever repay you?"

She looked at him and then at the video and then at him again. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths and then opened them again and gazed at him. He waited for her to say something, because it looked like she wanted to speak.

"Whatever you want to say, you can say it, Myra," he said. "Remember, we aren't hiding anything from each other."

She took another breath and then looked down, averting his eyes, as she spoke.

"I was wondering, Travis, if I did this for you, would you be willing to ..." She stopped in mid-sentence.

He didn't say anything, but he got up slowly. She was still looking at the floor. When he was driving to her house that night, he had a feeling that it might come to this. He had agonized over his feelings of fear and repulsion and prayed for help in deciding what to do. In the end, he had decided that God had led him to Myra because Delilah's soul needed to be saved. He was prepared to do anything to get Myra to help him. He calmly began walking to her studio.

Myra looked up and saw him. She got up and took a couple of steps to follow him, and then she stopped herself.

"No," she said softly. When she saw that Travis hadn't heard her, she screamed so loud that he jumped. "NO!"

"No," she said a third time. "I can't do this to you. When I was telling you what I would like to do to you, I made you look at me, because I was sure I would see a least a spark of interest, but all I saw was revulsion. I thought it was denial, but I was rationalizing.

"It's hard to let go of my fantasy about us. You love Delilah so much that you would do whatever I want. I don't think I will ever find someone who loves me that much, but you've given me a sliver of hope, Travis. I want a man like you. I mean, I want a man who's like you, except different in one area. I've been looking for love in all the wrong places, but you've opened me up to new ideas."

Travis began to slowly walk back to Myra as she spoke. He put his arms around her. She did the same to him. They stood and embraced silently for a long time.

************

"I almost lost it when I saw you again in that outfit," Abigail said, "but Myra only showed me the part where Grace was making you smile and nod and make those gestures."

Travis had been sprinting to the phone when it rang at home for a week, and when he finally heard Abigail's voice, he began vibrating from fear and hope.

"After she explained what Grace had done, I was confused, but then we looked at the website and she showed me. I owe you a huge apology for how I treated you, Travis, and I want to make it up to you. Just tell me what you want me to do."

They decided the best thing was for her to talk to Delilah first and get her to open up about her feelings toward him. Abigail promised she would get Delilah to meet with her.

************

A couple of weeks later, Abigail called him at his office.

"I just came from lunch with Delilah, and I have no time to talk," she said, "but I'll call you tonight. You won't believe what I found out."

He didn't wait for her call. As soon as he walked through his door, he went right to the phone.

"I don't have encouraging news, Travis," Abigail said. "When I mentioned your name, she got deathly pale. She asked me never to say your name again and not to ask her why. I couldn't think of any reply to that, and I was worried that if I ignored her request, she would get up and leave, so I dropped it.

"I haven't thought of a way to get past this yet, but I'll work on it. What I wanted to tell you is that Delilah shocked me. Her whole personality has changed. Her ideas are weird. In fact, they remind me of some of your ideas."

"My ideas? Like what?"

"I almost fell off my chair when she told me she's been going to church every Sunday for the last couple of months. She said going to church was giving her solace, and she felt more at peace there than anywhere else. She's been going to your church, and she really likes it."

"No way. I would have seen her."

"I asked her how she avoided being seen by someone whose name I couldn't mention. She arrives a few minutes late and sits at the very back, and just before the final benediction, she leaves and gets to her car and drives off before anyone else comes out. She's likes your church, but she's looking for another one because she's afraid of running into you if she gets more involved."

"That's hard for me to believe."

"Yes. It's totally not Delilah. That's all I have to report, but I'm going to stay in touch with her. I'll find a way to get her to talk to you. Just be patient."

Travis thought about what Abigail had said for a couple of days. He decided he was not going to be patient.

He arrived at church early the following Sunday and sat in the third row. The first time the minister asked the congregation to rise, he turned around, but he didn't see anything. When the minister told everyone to be seated, he scanned the pews at the back and saw her sitting down. She wasn't looking in his direction.

He waited until the minister began the final benediction and then got up and walked up the aisle quickly. The place where she had been sitting was already empty. People turned their heads as he burst through the doors. She had just gotten to the bottom of the stairs and was walking briskly toward the parking lot. She heard the sound of the church doors opening and turned around and saw him.

She began walking faster, and he began running. She also started running, but he caught up to her, grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him.

"No!" she screamed. "Travis, no!"

She yanked her arm free and put her hands over her ears.

He looked around. No one else had left the church yet. He quickly thanked God for that, pulled her to him and kissed her. She took her hands away from her ears to push him away and spoke lower, but there was still hysteria in her voice.

"No, Travis! Don't say anything! Let me go!"

"Shut up, Delilah!" he said, trying to keep from shouting in her face. "I'll let you go in a minute. Just listen! All I want to do is marry you and make you mine in the eyes of God. Then I want to love you for the rest of my life.

"No matter what Grace told you, I hated that video as much as you did, but now that I know everything, I I thank God that I did it. If you had done 'Disgusting Debutantes' to save me, it would have killed me.

"That's what I wanted to tell you. I can prove Grace is lying, but that doesn't matter. You must choose your faith -- faith in Grace or faith in me. Now I promise you I'll never bother you again."

He let go of her, turned around and walked slowly for about ten steps with his shoulders back and his head high, but then his body slowly began collapsing into itself from the torment in his brain as he tried to accept that he and Delilah were finished.

After a few more steps, he heard a loud scream behind him. She was in pain, he thought. She was struggling with what he had said. He prayed that she would believe him and stop tormenting herself.

Then she screamed again, but this time there were words.

"Travis! Come back! Please come back, please!"

As her last words died on the air, he turned around in time to see her crumple to the ground. He ran up to her and saw she was lying on the sidewalk sobbing and shaking.

*****************

When Delilah told him she would never forgive Grace, he didn't argue with her. More than a year after their wedding, they were on the way to church when she told him she was going to pray for Grace for the first time that day. She asked him how he felt about her forgiving Grace and seeing her again.

"I think your faith is so strong that there's no way Grace can harm you," he said. "Someday, she might want to change her life, and if you keep in contact, you might be able to help her."

Long before that, a couple of months after they had reconciled, he did a double take one Sunday as they were leaving services and he saw Myra talking to another church member. She was in one of the rear pews, near the same location where Delilah once sat.

When they walked out, he asked Delilah to walk ahead a little and then wait for him, because he needed to talk to someone. When Myra came through the door, he stepped forward, and she saw him. She smiled her wonderful smile and embraced him as powerfully as she had the night he had been at her house and kissed him hard on the mouth. Then she noticed Delilah staring at them and released him quickly.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"It's because of you. I thought about you a lot after the last time we saw each other. I kept coming back to the kind of man you were. You were the first real Christian I ever met. I mean you try to live according to your faith.

"I decided that I needed to open my mind and check into other kinds of beliefs than those I was raised with. I've been thinking about becoming a member of your wonderful church. Would you mind?"

"Not at all. I hope you find peace of mind here as well as new friends."

He shook her hand and rejoined Delilah.

"What was that all about?" Delilah asked.

"While we were apart, I dated her a few times," he said. "We never did anything. Most of the time I talked about you and she listened. She's really an angel."

"Tell me more."

"She's a very unusual woman. She's a psychologist who knows a lot about alternative sex, and in her private life she does a lot of the same things as Grace, except not for money. And if it wasn't for her -."

"You can stop there, Travis," she said.

He saw that she had become pale.

"I don't want to hear any more. It makes me think about what happened and how I nearly lost you."

The two women met, and they talked politely to each other during church activities, but Myra sensed that Delilah was nervous around her, so she kept her distance. Delilah didn't bring her up again except for one time, when she told him a friend of hers had said that she had dated several bachelors in the congregation.

"I'm happy to hear that," he said. "She is an angel."

"The devil was an angel," Delilah replied.

************

"Why isn't Delilah here?" Myra asked as she came up to Travis at the end of Wednesday night Bible class. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes, she's fine. She left today for a retreat, and she won't get back until Sunday night, but it's the last trip she's taking. The company doctor said it was safe to for her to fly for another month, but she told her partners she wasn't taking any chances and offered to sell out. The partners backed off."

"Do you know what it is yet?"

"It's a boy."

"I'm so happy for the two of you."

"Thank you," he said and smiled. "I hope Peter's not sick."

"Barbara substituted tonight because he's traveling on business. He's going to be gone another week. I really miss him."

"I am so pleased about you and Peter. He's a terrific guy."

He saw that Myra was gazing at him with a quizzical expression, as if she was trying to make up her mind about something. Then her smile came back.

"I agree. Peter is special. Listen, Travis, I have to run now. I'm going out for coffee with a few of the ladies in our class. But I just had a thought. Since Delilah and Peter won't be back by Sunday, I want to talk to you after church."

"I don't know, Myra," he said.

"Don't worry," she said. "Peter and I like to sit and talk on a bench in the children's Bible garden, so that's where we'll go. I'm sure people will see us there, but I don't care."

"Okay," he said hesitantly.

"Thanks. It really means a lot to me. I'm going to run now before you change your mind. Bye."

***********

She walked briskly to the garden, and he was a half-step behind her. When they sat down, he looked at her and saw she was struggling with herself until she finally spoke.

"I know this is selfish of me, and I apologize in advance for making you uncomfortable. But this will probably be my only chance, so I'm going for it. I'm totally frustrated, because I'm the happiest woman in the world, but I can't tell anybody. Except you.

"I love you for letting me inflict my happiness on you and not judging me for it -- even before you do that.

"You and Delilah were probably surprised when I started coming to Peter's class, but I decided that it was big enough that I could participate and still stay far enough away to not spoil it for you.

"Our minister was the one who suggested I come on Wednesday nights. I was asking him complicated questions about faith and morality, and he said that Peter was a wonderful teacher and also exemplified a virtuous man more than anyone he knew. He felt sure that listening to Peter would answer many of my questions, and he was right.

"Peter never made me feel I didn't belong. He was surprised at how I devoured the books he suggested, and it wasn't long before I was confident enough to jump into the discussions and challenge people when I felt they were wrong.

"I became friends with other single women at church, and Peter was always a topic of conversation. As you might guess, we didn't talk about his knowledge, his patience or his devotion but about his forehead, chin and six pack.

"A few of them had dated him and said they were frustrated because while they were willing to set aside some of their morals, he never deviated from the straight and narrow as far as they could tell.

"You probably don't remember a few months ago when I asked about something that I thought was contradictory in 'Job,' and he said it would take a whole class to explain it. After class, I was talking to him and something popped into my brain. I realized much later who put it there. You could have told me right away.

"Anyway, I told him that I'd be willing to cook dinner for him if he'd be willing to explain what I had brought up earlier.

"The minute I said it, I was embarrassed. He's the most respected lay teacher at our church, and here I was, someone he probably considered woefully ignorant about Christianity, asking him to waste an evening. I can't say he was enthusiastic, but he accepted my invitation graciously without a second thought.

"While I was making coffee after dinner and trying to rest my brain from too much exercise caused by our discussion, he wandered into the living room, and when I came in with the tray, I saw him standing in front of a display case in the corner of the room.

"He asked me about it. For some reason, I was embarrassed and tried to dismiss it as an eccentricity. I told him that for a while I had gotten into collecting different kinds of whips and lashes. I was hoping he wouldn't ask how in the world I got interested in that, and he didn't.

"He picked up one of the whips and said it looked like a cat 'o nine tails that medieval Christians used for flagellating themselves.

"I told him that's exactly what it was and asked him how he knew. He told me that he had studied that era extensively and often thought about what devout Christians had done to themselves to keep from falling into sin. He said he had even imagined self-flagellation sometimes when he was tempted or when he lost a battle with the devil, but he had never seen a real cat, only drawings or photos."

Myra stopped talking and looked at Travis.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Your face doesn't think it's nothing. What do you want to say?"

"You're getting into stuff that makes me uncomfortable. But I guess I've endured worse."

"We're not going there," she said. "I promise you I'll never talk about this again, but I just have to tell someone one time. I'm not trying to bring you down. This is all about sharing blessings and happiness."

"Okay, go ahead. I won't interrupt. But I'll be glad when you're done."

"I know. Now where was I?

"Oh yes, Peter was talking about the whips in my display case. As he spoke, I felt my temperature rise. I was boiling. In the space of a few seconds, I had gone from admiring him as a teacher and example of virtue to desiring him sexually. I could hardly restrain myself and pretend detachment as I explained the different items in the case and what they were used for.

"He seemed interested in what I was saying, but I thought it might just be out of politeness and wondered what he was thinking about me. Before we moved to the coffee table, he picked up the cat again and turned it around in his hands a few times before replacing it. We went back to talking about religion, and he went home.

"I couldn't get him out of my mind after that night. After the next class, I concocted a reason to ask him for dinner again, and he accepted. This time I served some wine and appetizers in the living room before dinner. As I was bringing things to the coffee table, I saw him go over to the case, take out the cat and begin turning it over in his hands again.

"I walked up behind him and said, 'You know, medieval Christians didn't just flagellate themselves with this. Some of them would ask others to whip them, because it was more thorough and efficient.'"

"'I know,' he said.

"'Are you curious about how that would feel?' I asked him.

"He looked at me and didn't say anything, but he didn't put the cat back.

"'If you want, I could give you a few strokes just to satisfy your curiosity,' I said. 'And then we could have a nice glass of wine and dinner.'

"He still didn't say anything.

"'To get a real idea of what the medievals felt, you'd have to take off your shirt,' I said.

"He turned and faced me and handed me the cat. Then he turned away and unbuttoned his shirt. He pulled his arms out of his shirt and let it drop below his waist, and then he pulled off his undershirt and put it on the display case, all without saying a word. Then he surprised me by stepping back from the case, leaning forward and grasping it while he spread his legs. His bare back was nearly horizontal.

"I moved closer to him and tried to control my emotions and speak calmly. I said, 'I'm going to give you five, Peter. If you don't want me to do that, just tell me.' He didn't say anything.

"I was so worked up that I brought down the cat much harder than I intended on my first stroke. He screamed loudly and nearly fell to the floor. But he didn't tell me to stop, and after a moment he got into his previous position again.

Since he had accepted my heavy stroke with no complaint, I was just as vigorous on the next three, and on the last one, I put everything I had into it. That one brought another agonized scream and made him stagger as he let go of the case with one hand.

"I waited to see what he would do. He stood holding onto the case for support for a couple of minutes and then he straightened up. I saw the bright red lines across his back as he walked slowly to the bathroom. I had an orgasm.