There's a First Time for Everything

Sophie's phone vibrated insistently again.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Sophie said, crawling for her phone to confirm it wasn't her parents. "It's just Von again... I wish I could silence this accursed thing, but if I want to keep an eye out for my parents... you know... you can take it out on my ass if it'd make you feel any better."

Sophie said this with a bright, sweet cheeriness that greatly tempted Rose to do just that... but that previous hunger was hard to ignore, and easy to infect her thoughts.

She *had*, after all, heard Sophie mentioning Von in the past, and it was clear by her tone that her professed crush was much more than just an average schoolgirl yearning. She had feelings for this boy, and if she had the chance to play a little matchmaker for them while also having her fun?

Well, that was just fine and dandy by Rose's book.

"Tell me... just *how* cute is this Von?" Rose asked, not wanting to reveal too much of her hand right away.

Sophie blushed, and spoke with a rare excitement. "More like *devastatingly handsome*. Why?"

It was delightful to see just how Sophie reacted to the mention of him, as it only confirmed to her that this was a fantastic idea.

In answer to her friend, Rose didn't have to say anything, simply looking at Sophie as if the answer should've been obvious as to why she was interested.

Sophie's eyes went wide. "Oh."

Rose grinned a dark and delicious smile. "I think it might be best for both of us if I took out your butt plug, and you were to text this boy back and let him know just how interested in being saved we two wayward, lost souls are..."

"He wouldn't want to do that," Sophie said, quickly, before adding. "Von's an innocent... and so nice... there's a reason I haven't made a move on him before."

Smirking, Rose went in for the kill. "You know many people likely thought that once about you, and look at how much better off you are for that experience?

Sophie gulped, then licked her lips nervously, the blush spreading down her chest as she thought this matter over. It took her a while to respond as she clearly wanted to think out all the variables, but soon enough, there was only one way she could answer.

Finally nodding, Sophie replied, "I'll text him back."

***

18-year-old Von Everett slowed his bike in front of the Cusack house with a sense of nervous anticipation and excitement. It was difficult to determine for the handsome young African-American man which of these conflicting emotions held greater sway over his being at the moment, but he decided that on a day as fine as this one that he would let the more positive emotions in, while pushing all of the negative aside.

He was here for a righteous reason, helping someone he respected greatly in the name of the Lord, after all, and if that wasn't enough to brighten his spirit, he didn't know what would.

As he sat on his bike out in front of Sophie's home, however, he did have to acknowledge that he had plenty to still be nervous about. A fairly sheltered home-schooled young man, he was not accustomed to meeting up with friends outside of church functions, let alone meeting with a *girl* unsupervised by one of his parents or another. His mother would pitch a fit if she knew where he was, and even if she knew the righteousness of his cause, she would have all but certainly demanded that he go home at once and pray for forgiveness for any evils he may have even briefly considered.

She didn't know where he was, however, and if his parents were to stay out as late as they often did on nights like this, he knew it was unlikely they would catch him in any compromising position.

That did add a certain illicit thrill to it, didn't it? That even if what he was doing here was right, he was still here in almost certain defiance of his parents' wills. It brought a certain sick feeling in his stomach, since this was certainly pretty far from honoring his father and mother, but at the same time if he could bring someone he cared about deeply back to the light... well that had to be worth something under His eyes, didn't it?

Von swung a leg over his bicycle so he could walk alongside it, careful not to dirty his crisply pressed khaki pants, or his white, long-sleeved, button-up shirt. With a tentative, hopeful smile on his handsome face (a face whose attractiveness wasn't even close to being marred by his less than flattering glasses), he wheeled his bicycle toward the Cusack's front porch, his eyes nervously darting toward the neighbor's houses, certain there were eyes present that would swiftly report him to his parents for sneaking out... and yet there were none. At a muscular and athletic 6'2", he knew he wasn't that difficult to miss, so this certain feeling of anonymity gave him strength.

Stopping again before he reached the porch, Von touched the small silver cross hanging on a chain around his neck and closed his eyes. "Lord, give me strength."

Opening his eyes and finding the task of walking forward somewhat less daunting, he continued forward.

Of course, he shouldn't have been here at all. If anyone had told him back in October that of all the lost souls who needed saving that he would be trying to bring *Sophie* *Cusack's* back into the light... he would have called them crazy because, well... the Sophie that he knew just wasn't that kind of girl. She couldn't have been the girl at the center of these many dark, twisted rumors that he heard around the other members of the church's youth groups, and yet he couldn't help but fear they were true enough that saving Sophie, and bringing her back to the girl he knew she truly was, was his new mission.

The Sophie he knew was one obsessed with virtue, who had a fundamental understanding of all the texts and what was right and wrong. She was one who would challenge their pastors whenever they would say something that didn't strictly follow the word, and who kept the Young Christian Purity Brigade on task whenever so many of its other members were easily distracted and focused on their own goals. There was a singularity to her vision and drive that he admired, and often wished for in himself.

It wasn't just Sophie's determination and drive and the power of her faith that drew him in... no, it was also her kindness, her compassion, her dedication to charity and helping others... and yes, her beauty, as well. It took Von several years to put the words to it because he was so unfamiliar with most of the concepts surrounding romantic interest, but he was pretty sure that he was indeed a little sweet on Sophie Cusack. Perhaps it was even a dreaded "crush" on her that he had... now wouldn't that be something? If his mother had her way, he wouldn't have had anything resembling a romance until he was 30 and some sort of doctor, yet here he was with a crush on the girl who led up the church's purity club.

He dared not mention this to anyone, of course; couldn't have it getting back to his mother after all that he had interests that might derail his promising future, but the way Sophie would occasionally look at him and dart her eyes away with a faint look that might even be a smile, he had thought that it might be possible that she shared similar feelings toward him. This was intimidating... and made what he had to do all the more daunting, given the rumors he'd heard about what she'd been doing.

Still, Von was confident that if anyone could save her and bring her back to the light, it would be him.

Setting his bike near the front door and kicking its stand down, he took in a breath and stepped up to the door. Already second-guessing himself, he wished that he'd brought his Bible along with him, but it was too late to go back now, and he was sure that if anyone had any extra copies, it would be Sophie.

Licking his lips, he raised his hand and knocked on the door.

Not ten seconds later, it swung open, and he was greeted by the sight of a beaming Sophie, dressed in her customary conservative sweater and long skirt, looking up at him and utterly full of light and joy. Even though she was a solid foot shorter than him, he couldn't help but feel slightly intimidated by her, especially as she stepped forward and hugged him.

"Von! I'm so happy you could make it!" Sophie exclaimed. "Please, come in! Come in!"

Von blushed intensely at this unexpected show of affection, looking around fearfully. "Ummm, hi, but... won't your parents see?"

The closeness to Sophie may have been something he'd dreamed about for some time, not to mention the insistent pressure of her sizable breasts pressing into his stomach.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about them! They're out tonight!" she said, letting him go and stepping back inside. "Please, come in!"

Feeling a sudden surge of relief, and taking in her more insistent tone, Von followed her inside, leaving his shoes and socks by the door at her insistence. He didn't enter without *any* trepidation, as he had always been taught of the wickedness that was bound to happen whenever two young people of the opposite sex were alone together, but he trusted his instincts about Sophie enough not to worry too much.

Nodding softly, he continued, "Thank you for hosting me... I don't want to be a bother, of course, but recent developments have made it so I thought it best that we have a private conversation outside of the limitations of our phone texts, one where we... where are you going?"

Sophie bypassed the living room with ease, turning to look at Von. "Oh, Rose and I were already set up in back, and I don't want to keep her waiting."

"Rose?" he asked, nervous.

Still smiling, she replied, "Yes. She's a friend of mine from school; we're working on a project together... but I promise you won't be interrupting or anything. Please, come with me!"

This was not enough to sway Von. "Wouldn't it be more... appropriate, if we had this discussion out here? I wouldn't want to give the impression to anyone that anything untoward was occurring."

Sophie laughed, a high, pleasant sound that cheered Von nearly as much as it frightened him under the circumstances. "Nothing *untoward* is going to happen if you come with me, Von, I promise. You really need to relax."

There was an insistence to her voice, one that reminded him well of the Sophie he admired, that overwhelmed any reservations he had, and so, Von followed her back further into the house.

"Alright, if you insist!" he said, his hesitation building with every step, yet as that built, so did the illicit thrill of it all. It was an interesting battle, he had to admit, between his anxiety and that excitement that came with doing something his parents would never approve of, and doing it in the presence of a girl he liked...

He had to remind himself to stop having such impure thoughts, especially around someone he respected as much as he respected Sophie. They were improper, sinful, and worst of all, they would distract him from the true reason he'd come here.

"I want to thank you for messaging me today," Sophie said, turning enough to flash him a quick smile. "I haven't been in a position of sociability like I'm used to recently, and the company is much appreciated. *Your* company is much appreciated."

"*My* company?" Von asked, taken aback. He barely enjoyed his own company, so for someone like Sophie to say that she enjoyed him was unexpected, to say the least.

"Of course," Sophie replied, stopping in the hallway so she could better talk to him. "Things can get a little... heated, sometimes, back at church, but you always keep a level head. You choose your words well, while not letting any of the bigger personalities speak over you when you have something to say. I have always admired that about you."

He felt his face flush again. "Well, thank you, Sophie... I hold you in the highest regard as well. In fact, that's part of the reason that I came here today."

"It is?" she asked, raising an eyebrow curiously, leaning slightly toward him.

Briefly, the way Sophie leaned toward him accentuated the curves of her rather large breasts beneath a sweater that Von was suddenly aware was very, *very* tight. Almost as if another person had stepped into his shoes, his eyes dropped to her chest for a fraction of a second. It may have been a brief glance, but in his mind, it lasted a considerable period of time as he felt a sudden urge... one that soon transformed into shame and embarrassment as he shook his head clear.

Looking back into her eyes and hoping she didn't notice his indiscretion, Von tried to regain his train of thought. "Yes... yes! Yes, it is..."

"Well, you have certainly piqued my curiosity," Sophie replied, turning back to walk down the hall. "Do go on..."

"Right..." he replied, clearing his throat and putting order to the words that had suddenly become chaotic in his mind. "Well, as I discussed in my texts, there have been some rumors about you, lately... rumors of a most unseemly nature, and I believe it would be in your best interests if we discussed them to better determine how best to confront them."

"Yes, you were rather vague about that..." she said, leading him to a doorway to a room at the rear of the house. "But if these are rumors that need confronting, then let us confront them."

Without thinking, Von stepped into the room, only to find out at the last second that they were in a bedroom. Its sparse decoration led him to quickly assess it as a guest room of some variety, but that didn't do much for his anxiety toward being unsupervised with a girl in a bedroom.

Correction: *two* girls in a bedroom.

Sitting in a chair opposite the bed was a stunningly beautiful blonde girl in a faded red dress reading from a textbook who must have been Rose. Her wavy blonde hair with its few streaks of blue framed a clever, amused face with dazzling eyes that watched Von's discomfort from across the room.

"You must be Von Everett... she told me you were handsome, but I don't think she did you justice!" Rose said in a cool, confident voice that almost set Von at ease.

"I... ummm..." Von stammered, trying and failing miserably to get his own words together.

This was not made easier when Sophie took him by the hand and tried guiding him toward the bed. "Don't mind Rose; she's kind of a character. Come, sit with me, and we can talk!"

She sat down on the bed, but Von stayed standing next to her. "I think I'll stand... and these matters are of an important and personal nature..."

He let his eyes drift toward Rose for emphasis, but Sophie brushed off any of his concerns. "Rose is a dear friend; anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of her."

Given the sensitivity of what he wished to discuss, Von doubted very much that this was a conversation that would be best in front of an audience. There was a certain mischief to her eyes that he didn't fully trust, even though he couldn't sense any malevolence to her. Then again, given his own limited interactions with people his own age, he also knew that trusting his own instincts on this matter was chancy, at best.

Von took a breath. If this was how this discussion had to go, fine, this was how they'd talk it out.

"Ever since you left the Brigade..." he began. "...no doubt for reasons that made the greatest sense after much consideration on your part, there have been other departures from the group among our members. Departures in numbers that are so great that the group itself has been halved."

"More than halved, by my count... but please, continue," Sophie replied, almost sounding proud of this fact.

"Yes... right... well, because of this, for reasons that are beyond me, there have been rumors swirling among those who remained, and some of the adults at the church, as to the reason for all of these departures... and they all seem to revolve around you. They believe you're to blame for what has happened because..." Von said, licking his lips and looking nervously between the two girls. Rose's attention was split between looking up at him lazily and her book, while Sophie looked up at Von with such patient expectancy that he felt more on the spot now than when he had first arrived.

"Why would they blame me?" Sophie asked, her voice innocent and strong at once.

"Because you're a woman?" Rose suggested. "Close-minded types always love to blame women when things don't go their way... especially the beautiful ones, like you."

"Are *you* blaming me because I'm a beautiful woman?" Sophie asked, blinking up at him.

"What? No!" Von protested, raising his hands. "I mean, you're beautiful, but... I don't believe any of what they're saying about you! I believe in your virtue and the strength of your faith more than I believe in anyone else's! Your relationship with God is beyond reproach, but they seem to have lost their belief in you, and I wanted to talk to you about some ideas I had for ways you might be able to win the people of the church back."

Straightening himself up, he went in for the kill. "Even if no one else believes in you anymore, Sophie... I do. I always have, and I always shall."

"I believe in you too," Rose said, waving playfully to Sophie. "But I'm probably not the one who matters here."

Sophie looked up at Von, her face a mask of pleasant exasperation. "If any of your ideas involve me putting my purity ring back on and rejoining the Brigade so it can be rebuilt into its former glory, I must stop you now and make it clear that it is simply an impossibility."

Unfortunately for Von, this was the starting point of most of his ideas. "Why?"

"It's a matter that I have considered and prayed over greatly, but at the end of the day, I believe that I have grown past the limited view that the Brigade offered, and found that a lot of the matters it was founded on to be based in bad faith and half-truths that could only lead to more harm than good," Sophie continued.

"But... but..." Von pleaded. "You helped found the group!"

"And I'll be making up for the damage I did with it for some time now... I can only hope for forgiveness for the evils I committed," Sophie said, casting her eyes down.

"Evils?" Von asked, not believing what he was hearing. "You were a crusader for the righteous!"

"I harassed those who chose a different path than me. Believed certain natural functions of the body and mind to be unnatural and dangerously wicked. Shunned those who deserved compassion when life had not been kind to them. I did many a great evil in the name of what I believed the word of God to be, doing a great bit of damage to myself and those around me... I have only just been able to start healing myself, but I am hoping in time I will be able to heal those whose lives I have hurt by my once narrow definition of His word," Sophie said, keeping her tone even and earnest.

It was this evenness and earnestness that threw Von for a loop, because it was far from the fire and brimstone spewing Sophie he had known growing up. The girl before him looked the same, sounded the same, but she wasn't the same... no, she couldn't be the same. Something, or someone, had gotten to her... someone at her school, or in the world, they had put these dangerous thoughts in her mind and changed her... but Von knew Sophie, maybe better than anyone else at the church other than his parents. He could help her, and fix her, and given the right words, and perhaps some well-applied scripture, he could bring back the Sophie he knew best.

Possibly because she could see where this was going, Rose cleared her throat before Von could begin his argument. "I don't know about you, Sophie, but I'm interested in hearing more about these 'rumors' he keeps talking about."

Sophie laughed softly at her friend's interjection, before looking up to Von. "Now that you mention it, I believe I would like to hear about these as well."