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Chapter Three - RachelSummer had a smell. Sweet and light on the gentle breeze. Everything so still I could hear the buzz of the passing bees. More plentiful that year than others. I wasn’t allergic, and they didn’t tend to go after me, so I didn’t mind.
I’d wanted to sleep in. It was Saturday after all. It might not have been an actual law that I was supposed to get Saturdays off, but I believed with every cell of my being that there should be. The knocks were light. Just enough to wake me. The last coming at the same time he opened the door.
Dad’s knocks were more of a warning shot than a request for permission. He never asked permission for anything. Being firmly of the belief that it was not only easier but better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
“Daddy?”
“Morning, kitten.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Time to get up.”
Having already learned not to argue, I got up and started to get dressed after he left the room. Had he told me where we were going I probably would have made different decisions. As it was, I dressed for the weather.
“Where are we going?” I asked, belted into the back seat, my tummy full of warm oatmeal.
“A family outing,” Dad said brightly.
Mom shook her head but didn’t say anything. I was too young to take that as a red flag. Not that I could have done much any way.
There were already lots of people there when we pulled over to the curb. I recognized the building and knew it was bad but wasn’t sure why. Serious looking people in long white coats went into the building as we got out of the car. I would find out later that the building was a research laboratory. ‘Playing in God’s sandbox,’ my dad liked to say.
I could hear the vans before I saw them. The engines sounded more like bulldozers. Waves of strangely dressed people getting out and meeting outside the lab. They were dressed like priests and nuns.
The leader, at least I thought he was, started saying something about life and creation. I didn’t understand it all, but he seemed to be saying that life was preserved through science and to oppose science would lead to death and destruction. He didn’t get to finish. My parents and their friends started throwing fake blood and rotten tomatoes before he got the chance.
I sat bolt upright in bed. The dream was still stark in my mind except it hadn’t been a dream. Not exactly. Some details were different but what happened in the dream actually occurred on my 12th birthday. My dad thought it would be great fun to take me on a protest. I don’t know if he knew the counter-protesters would be there, but he sure was ready for them if he didn’t.
He was always doing stuff like that. He didn’t really believe in selfishness, even on occasions when it was seen acceptable. Especially when it was deemed as acceptable. Only giving out UNICEF pennies on Halloween and turning birthdays, including his own, and Christmas into opportunities for protest and charity respectively.
There were still clear memories of deciding which charity we wanted to support every Christmas and going down to volunteer at the soup kitchen rather than having a big meal ourselves. Dad might have been devout in his beliefs, sometime to the point of retrograde, but at least he wasn’t a hypocrite.
I counted my beads as I did every morning. A ritual as vital to the day for me as coffee was for others. I didn’t kneel anymore and figured the Lord really wouldn’t care if I was still in my night dress when my appeals and petitions were made.
My daily correspondence with the divine at an end, I headed to the bedroom, taking off my nightdress like a sweater as I went, leaving me quite naked for the last few steps from the living room into the privacy of the bathroom. I had neglected to close the blinds and anyone could have potentially seen in as they strolled past.
The warmth rose inside me once again. Turning me light pink from my cheeks all the way down to my chest. Though the idea embarrassed me, it also thrilled me a little. That anyone would be interested in gazing on my unclothed form. I didn’t look bad, I didn’t think. A bit on the soft side with a few extra pounds here and there. Though this only made my breasts bigger.
I looked at myself in the full length mirror in the bathroom. The ghost of a smile haunting my lips. I was in pretty fine form and also young. Only 18 and a virgin to boot. Surely there was some nice guy out there who would want to take me for a wife. I knew I was too young to be thinking about such things, but it really was what I wanted. Not least because I wanted to preserve my purity for my husband. As difficult as that task had been since puberty.
