The Tableau That is Lisa Ch. 07

All sexual activity described in this true story occurs between persons 18 or older at the time of the described activity.

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PROLOGUE

Eva perplexed her father the Pastor. He did not really see children as being much different than adults. It was a continuum, analog, not digital. And so he never treated his three daughters as being other than shorter, less physical adults with shorter attention spans.

Being a preacher was a lot like going to high school permanently. Lots of things you just had to do to prepare. Lots of reading and study and discussion. With Sunday morning services being the final exam.

Before they were of school age the Pastor took his girls with him to his church every day. His wife, their mother, worked there as well, she was kept very busy making appointments, managing his schedule, finding things, organizing things, cooking.

Eva loved the church, the building, its contents. The way there was a story behind everything. Especially the library and the hundreds of interesting books within. The Pastor's BA was in Textual Criticism, literally disassembling a work and examining it critically to unlock it's original meaning.

Original meaning was so important to Eva. If you believe that scripture exists to guide you, well isn't it really important to get the instructions right. She was reading at the second or third grade level when she went off to Kindergarten. All three days of it.

...

AUGUST 1963

The teacher had said "don't you want to do this" when what she meant was "would you please do this". Whatever it was, Eva did not 'want' to and she said no, and then kept doing whatever she had been doing.

It was an ugly teacher parent conference where the teacher lost a logical argument with a five year old in front of her boss and the Pastor. Then persisted, until she made her blatant idiocy clear to all present.

It was an epiphany for Eva. Unlike the other people in the room she was actively listening to the words being spoken. In so doing, she frequently caught three adults disseminating. They were not interested in teaching her. They were interested in breaking her and subjugating her to their will. Their arbitrary whims. No thank you.

The State of Texas did not require Kindergarten attendance, so she did not go back. Eva had a one year reprieve from the mundane reality of modern public education. A year of reading texts typically given to freshman seminarians. A year of shadowing the Pastor and his wife, of learning how to organize and run a church. Eva's little sisters, Lillian and Claire would just start school at the first grade.

...

MAY 1982

Eva perplexed her father the Pastor. So it did not come as a tremendous surprise when Eva arrived for Claire's high school graduation unmarried, in the eyes of the State at least, and in a very pregnant state. Her toddler in tow, accompanied by Lillian and Punch and his other grandchild, Lisa and Jamie, and George and Kristin and their child.

Eva studied, Eva knew what the text said, Eva constantly butted heads with the folks who just barely skimmed the 'Cliff's Notes' edition of the Bible and who semi-diligently attended services only on Easter and Christmas, when they could locate the church. Folks who couldn't differentiate Methodist from Episcopalian.

He knew she was doing good works at Azusa, her mission, although it was a tad Pentecostal for his church's governing body. He just wished she could see what it took him years to figure out. That people have serious flaws, like cracks in their character. To move them you have to get into their cracks from the oblique, pushing on the front door just closes the cracks.

He wished she would get a real diploma from a real seminary so that people would see her as a real minister of God. He didn't have to agree with her, or all of the choices she made in life. He just wanted others to respect her.

He admitted he was biased but still he couldn't find one 'wrong' thing she had done. One thing she hadn't thought through or a thing she had done that could not be scripturally justified. Even if was not the majority opinion. He wondered to himself, did Saint Joseph feel this way as a parent.

Claire, on the other hand, was just simply furious at her sister, both her sisters, but mostly at Eva. Eva could get Lillian to strip naked and dance at the podium at Claire's graduation if Eva wanted to. Eva could find some vague, obscure scriptural justification for anything. People talked, they talked about Eva and Lillian and Punch. And not in a nice way.

Claire had unkind thoughts. Eva was just there flaunting it, her belly bump. The never been married ordained Minister. Even that, it was a BS correspondence course ordination. Not from a seminary, even if it was legal. Flaunting the toddler she had in tow. The toddler fathered by Lillian's husband, the bump Eva's second child put there by Punch.

With Lillian's knowledge and consent. Heck, Lillian had told Claire that she was there when Eva conceived. There! There, probably cheering. Rah, rah, rah, give her an 'F', give her a 'U', give her a 'C'... Unbelievable, Lillian had told her she 'assisted'. That she had 'fluffed' Punch. Until that day she had not known the term. Now she just wished she had never learned it. The image kept popping into her head. Why? She didn't want to think of her sister doing that...

Lillian, what on her knees? Naked? All three of them naked probably. Lillian taking Punch's penis into her mouth. Making it 'erect' as they said in health class. Even if he was her husband. Eva and Lillian had said Claire was sheltered. Just because she had never actually seen or touched a real penis, or even seen a picture of one. It was hard to visualize one from those text book drawings. Like blind men describing an elephant.

More than likely ALL of them were there. ALL of them naked. Lillian's husband doing her sister. Putting a baby into her womb. Hey! Sell tickets, why don't you. All of them. Naked, touching each other, kissing, touching each other's things. Kissing them. Arghh.

If she asked, Lillian would probably 'lend' her Punch for the night.

"Oh Lillian dear, I seem to still be a virgin on the night of my high school graduation." She imagined saying.

"No problem at all, little sis. My big stud of a man would be ever so eager to put his thing into your thing. Get rid of that whole hymen thing. That virginity thing. That 'good daughter' thing. Relieve you of all that pent up stress, angst and frustration. Oh, and as an added bonus, nine months from now you can present mom with a fourth grandchild fathered by Punch. Then she will finally notice you."

There was just something wrong with that whole concept. And Eva would find some old book in Dad's library that made some reference to Jacob marrying some previously unknown third sister. A third first cousin to justify it.

She had tried to explain to Eva and Lillian that what they had done just wasn't done. At least not anymore. That people talked about them. But nobody could tell Eva anything.

She listened to input alright. She considered what was said to her. She was happy to discuss it. But the 'truth' was always paramount. In the end Eva did what Eva thought was right or justified, to heck with the consequences.

Eva, she was a force of nature. Claire could see Eva, like Jesus casting the money lenders out of the Temple. Eva she was so brilliant but so clueless. Like, well just like dad she thought. No wonder he did not ever seem to care what anybody said about her.

Just last month Eva had said that Punch was Jacob, she was Leah, and Lillian was Rachel. That if the State of Texas had allowed it, she Eva, would have married Punch first, FIRST, before Lillian, because that would have been the proper thing to do. THE PROPER THING TO DO? Calling Lisa and Jamie, Bilhah and Zilpah and explaining to Claire what a handmaid's carnal duties consisted of. There was Eva, throwing gasoline instead of water on a fire again.

She thought back to Eva at thirteen, Claire was nine. Eva, attending the public meeting held to decide what to do with the public Nativity display that had always been put up in December. An atheist asked that it be removed. Ministers including their father asking that it remain. Eva, speaking, agreeing that it should remain.

But Eva not leaving well enough alone, there were twenty votes for, only one against.

There was Eva pointing out that the city had it all wrong. That the creche it was displaying was being displayed in the wrong month. That according to scripture... Handing out the little mimeographed sheet she prepared documenting her proof... Jesus was born in late September.

Dad tacitly encouraged her, again, by bringing her to the meeting, and by not stopping her. When dad was asked about her behavior, by the other ministers, he simply said "you know that she is right".

Claire wished she was half as brave as her big sister. She wished she didn't care what anyone else thought. But that was not her. She was the 'good daughter', never making waves. Always making the responsible decision.

It might be fun borrowing Punch for the night. He must be good at whatever perverted games they all played. He had his own little harem following him. Even a couple lesbians, all kissy face, smoochy, smoochy, with him. She liked Jamie and Lisa, they were pals. But you know what they say, love the sinner, hate the sin.

Claire had made the mistake of saying something similar to Eva last week, when she had asked them not to come. Eva, always analytical, asked which sin Claire was referring to. Claire said homosexuality of course. Eva, tenderly touched her sisters head, kissed her sweetly, and said that nowhere in the Bible was homosexuality labeled as a sin.

Claire had responded with the story of Sodom. Nope, said Eva. Back in the time of the Bible folks were living in an inhospitable desert. God told people to share, to be nice to guests. But the people living in Sodom did not listen to God. They were greedy, they were inhospitable. That's why God destroyed Sodom.

Claire said Onan... Nope, Eva explained. Living in the desert was tough. God told his people to multiply. Onan offended God by choosing not to procreate. Onan's brother had died. God told Onan to plant his seed in his dead brother's wife. Onan chose not to listen to God. It did not end well for Onan.

Besides, said Eva, you don't have a penis. The fundamentalists who quote the whole Levidicus 'not lying with a man as if he were a woman' are completely inconsistent. One, it doesn't apply to women lying with women at all.

Two, they also say anal and oral sex are wrong, between men and women. So, logically, if a man is prohibited from having anal or oral sex with a woman. Then when a man lies with another man and has anal or oral sex he is not lying with a man as if he were a woman. He would only be lying with a man as if he were a woman if he put his penis in another man's vagina. Which is not possible.

When a man lies with another man and has sex, that man is lying with a man as if they were both ancient Greek warriors, like Alexander, or Irish poets like Wilde.

"Arghh." Claire thought. Eva has a quote or a justification for everything.

And then Eva had to tell her how much fun it was to have someone, obviously Punch, put his thing in her ass. How much fun it was to have someone, obviously Punch, put his thing in her mouth. How much fun it was to have someone, obviously Punch, put his mouth on her thing. Ewww! She would DIE of embarrassment.

So, if Eva and Lillian were both doing Punch. If the Bible didn't say that you can't. Ewww! Were Eva, and Lillian, you know... Each other... Like Jamie and Lisa. Ewww! Maybe all seven of them, together, Ewww, at the same time. Because, well, it's fun, and Eva says you won't go to hell.

Eva, Eva, Eva, even now, on her day even she was thinking about Eva. Eva had ruined her graduation day. Eva and Lillian and Punch, and even Dad by not stopping them. Claire could barely remember the graduation ceremony. Nobody would even remember that she had walked because they were too busy staring at those people, those gosh darned polygamists.

So, she sat on the folding chair in the nearly empty gymnasium and sobbed softly to herself. Having her own little pity party, as her old friend Ethan approached. He was rather handsome in his Blue Uniform with its Corp of Cadets insignia. She rose as he approached her. He hugged her tightly.

"Congratulations"

"Thanks. Here for the summer?"

"No, I am here to see you graduate."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know. Half the summer anyway."

"Well you made me smile, we should get together. Are you going to stay at the house of ill repute?"

"Yeah, but I understand it's under new management."

"Too bad, you college boys would have liked it better before."

"I am deeply offended at your implication, Miss. I will have you know that those of us honored to attend the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University are of the highest moral character. Why we never even have so much as an impure thought."

"Yeah, right. Now you are making me laugh."

"Yeah, I saw you crying, what's up."

"Nothing new, just that I'm invisible."

"Not to me, you aren't."

"But you like me."

"Yeah, a lot... Claire. I have a thought... I mean to say, I have given this a lot of thought. I really was going to ask you this later. But seeing you, here, now it just seems like the right time... I mean, right now... So, Claire... What would you think about being an Army wife?"

"Gee... I... had... never thought about it, why"

"I think you should take a day or two and think about it. Think it through, it could be just right. I think you might like it."

Through the lifting fog of her own self pity, rays of understanding were beginning to penetrate. Was Ethan... Her old buddy... No... Was he...

It became clear in a flash as Ethan dropped to a knee beside her and holding her left hand in both of his said.

"Claire Elisabeth Bordeaux, will you marry me?"

Lisa Ann