“I, Margaret Williams, pledge to God, myself, my future husband, and my family that I will remain sexually pure until I am united in holy matrimony.”
It was 1978 and seven girls and five boys took the pledge on a hot summer night in the basement of the Salvation Church in the small Kansas town of Arapaho. Maggie had just begun her senior year in Arapaho’s only high school.
Sue Parsons, her best friend, giggled and whispered in her ear. “Cross your fingers behind your back.”
“What?”
“That signifies you don’t mean it.”
Maggie suppressed a giggle of her own with a hand over her mouth. The two friends were polar opposites. Sue was bold, brassy, and busty. Maggie was slender, mousy, and too smart for a girl. She helped Sue with math and shone brighter in her large shadow. Maggie was serious about the pledge. Sue? What choice did she have? Sue’s father was the pastor of the church.
“Shhh,” Maggie admonished her. They joined in reading the Bible with the young, handsome preacher with the shock of long, black, slicked-back hair, pomaded to a shine. “It is God’s will,” they read, “that you should be sanctified; that you should avoid sexual immortality; that each of you controls your own body in holiness and honor.”
“Okay, finished,” whispered Sue. “It’s time for kool-aid and cookies.” Sue, in Maggie’s opinion, pushed the boundaries of being a good Christian. Her father scratched his head in perplexity over Sue’s antics, but she was respectful in church on Sunday, always memorized the Bible verses assigned in Sunday school, and attended the Wednesday prayer meeting. That’s how Sue and Maggie became unlikely friends.
“The pledge is not a small thing,” Maggie told Sue. “We don’t want to end up like Vi.” Vivian was one of several girls in Arapaho’s high school who had become pregnant the previous school year. “The Bible says it’s wrong to have sex before marriage. It will be so much more meaningful to wait until God finds your life partner.”
“I hope you’re right,” answered Sue doubtfully. “But in the meantime, I’ll help God by doing a little looking myself.” She laughed. Sue had a reputation for being “fast,” for kissing on the first date, and for “making out” with boys, but Maggie was confident that Sue would never go “too far.”
Vi’s pregnancy inspired the church leaders of Arapaho to hire a young, handsome, charismatic, hell-fire-and-brimstone preacher to organize a youth group as an alternative to the drinking, dancing, and fornication that was so prevalent among the high school students. The youth group was called TLC: “Teens Living for Christ.” There were a dozen regular members and a few others who showed up occasionally. The group scheduled regular Friday night parties — after the game during football season — and the preacher counseled the group on how they should conduct themselves to avoid stoking the carnal fires of teenagers. Prayer was suggested as the most powerful weapon when temptation lurked. Maggie felt her heart flutter whenever she saw the preacher, but he spent more time praying with Sue than he did with her. “Perhaps.” Maggie thought, “Sue’s need was greater.”
The pledge didn’t seem like a burden. Panting boys were not besieging Maggie, but seventeen years old, she could look at herself in the mirror and see that she was almost pretty with silky, straight, light-brown hair and large, waif-like brown eyes. Her breasts were like two fried eggs topped with cherries – large, plump, red cherries that embarrassed her with their prominence. She kept them well covered, as she did the rest of her body, by wearing loose blouses that buttoned up to the neck and skirts that reached below her knees.
Sue had chosen Maggie to be her best friend and to follow in her boisterous wake as a secret sharer. Sue was not popular with other girls. She attracted too much attention from the boys. She was always surrounded by a crowd of boys laughing at her jokes and eyeing her oft-displayed and impressive cleavage. The boys who could not attract Sue’s attention would sometime pay attention to Maggie.
Maggie dreamed of romance – and romance found her that fall. Appropriately, it happened at the Friday night TLC party at the church. A boy named Don was a recent addition to the youth group. He sat down beside her while soft drinks and cake were being served. Sue sat on her other side, entertaining a brace of boys with off-color stories and not complaining when their eyes focused on her breasts straining against the fabric of her blouse. Sue directed a quick look at Don and gave Maggie the suggestion of a wink.
“Would you like to go to the movie with me tomorrow?” Don asked. The closest movie theater was in Hickok, twenty miles away. “My father will let me take our car.”
Maggie was taken aback. She barely knew him. She stuttered for a moment and couldn’t come up with a reason to say no. “Why, yes, That would be nice. Thank you for asking me.”
Don was undistinguished in the senior class. An average student, he was tall, lanky, and rather good-looking — though clumsy and inept in social situations. In the vernacular of the time, he was in the high school social class of “grits” – which was better than being a “hood” but well below the prestige of a “jock” or a “prep.” Maggie was in no-man’s-land. She was too smart to be a grit but her pedigree and personality didn’t measure up to being a prep.
They hardly found a word to say on the date, but as Don walked her to the door of her house after the movie, he asked, “Would you go to the Homecoming Dance with me?”
The more conservative members of the congregation of the Salvation Church considered dancing a sin. “But Sue dances – and she’s the preacher’s daughter,” Maggie said to herself, “and a boy has asked me to go!”
Yes, I would love to,” she answered and kissed Don on the cheek. Maggie was confident that the jungle sounds of rock and roll music and the hot, feverish contortions of bodies on the dance floor would not lead her into temptation. Her faith would shine like a beacon. Her deportment would say. “I can dance and still be a good Christian.”
Don and Maggie became a couple. They went to church parties, watched television, studied together and, when he could get his family’s car, went to the movies. They cuddled on the sofa in the living room of Maggie’s house and kissed chastely, but they never allowed their hands or mouths to stray to forbidden zones and she kept her lips closed — one of the tips of the handsome preacher to help her avoid temptation.
Maggie believed that Don had the potential to become a good Christian – even a preacher as outstanding in work for the Lord as the youth group leader with the golden tongue and the swept-back hair. Don was her first opportunity to carry out the Bible’s command to “go into the whole world and preach the gospel.” She fantasized that the man she married would become a pastor and she would pass all the days of her life as his helpmate, a shining example of Christian womanhood. Nor did it hurt her social standing in high school to have a boyfriend.
Sue’s opinion of Don was grudging. “Yes,” she said. “He’s a nice boy and good looking, and all that…but you’ve got a future to think of. You and I are going on to something better than this town.”
Although Sue had abundant boys at her beck and call, including J.B., the star halfback on the high school football team, Maggie thought that she was a little jealous of her happiness and begrudged the time that Maggie spent with Don instead of her.
It was just after Christmas while cuddling on the sofa in her house that Don moved his hand from her shoulder to her waist, his fingers running slowly over her breasts. Her nervous giggle ended in a gasp when his mouth found hers and he pushed himself close to her and his hand ran down her back and under the waistband of her skirt.
Maggie allowed the kiss to continue longer than she should have before she shook herself free from him. “Sorry,” he apologized.
“I understand,” she said. She had been taught that it was a woman’s responsibility to restrain the savage sexual beast that lurks in the heart of men. She patted Don on the knee to show that he was forgiven and they sat a little closer than usual the rest of the night, his arm over her shoulder and chest pressed into her ribs, her large, hard, right nipple enjoying the feel of the friction through their clothing. She masturbated that night with the fantasy that she as married and enjoying the blissful delights of sex between two committed Christians. It was the first time she had ever carried her sexual fantasies all the way to imagining intercourse — and the face of her partner was blurred.
On their next evening together, sitting on the sofa, one of his hands found its way to her breast and lingered and the other to the curve of her buttocks. His hands stayed in place while they kissed — and she broke another rule she had learned for avoiding temptation. She took her feet off the floor and reclined. She allowed him to unfasten the top buttons on her blouse and his fingers to reach under her bra to feel her nipples. She sensed the hardness of his penis beneath the fabric of his blue jeans.
“I love you,’ he said. “I want to marry you.”
She was speechless. “Don’t you love me?” he pressed.
“Oh, I do,” she answered, kissing him on the lips. But she was nervous about her declaration.
“I think this is all right if we’re going to be married.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by “this.” She thought about it as they kissed, he half on top of her, his fingers massaging her breasts, her twitching to feel better his hard penis pressing against her hip. “Well, yes,” she said. “I think it’s all right that we do this. As long as we don’t go any further,” she added quickly.
“Of course not,” he agreed. After that, they talked about marriage and their future. Maggie didn’t exactly accept his proposal of marriage — and she could not come out with a declaration of unqualified love. She would help Don grow into the kind of person he could be. He was slothful at school and vague about his future.
Don came over late one night to watch television. Her parents had already gone to bed. She wore flannel pajamas– long, loose trousers held on with a drawstring and a loose top that buttoned down the front. The pajamas were modest, she told herself, but she was aware that his hands could find her breasts easier under the top than if she put on a bra and blouse.
They lay on the sofa side-by-side and for the first time a boy’s mouth sucked her nipples. She turned onto her back and he rolled on top of her and pressed against her groin. He began to gyrate, his body driving harder and harder against hers. She spread her legs to better feel him as he pitched wildly back and forth, breathing hard and moaning. The knot on her pajama bottoms came loose and the cloth parted and she felt the rough fabric of his blue jeans against her half-exposed stomach.
After a few, last hard strokes he groaned and collapsed against her, his labored breathing hot against her neck.
She wasn’t sure what had happened — but she thought he had “climaxed.” That was a word less embarrassing to her than “orgasm.”
He lay on top of her and she felt the hardness in his jeans go away after his last spasm. He relaxed in her arms; her pajama bottoms were open, pulled down to leave her thighs bare, one of his hands was between her legs, her pajama top was unbuttoned and his head was resting on her bare breasts. Only a month before the notion of displaying her breasts to a man would have been unthinkable, let alone allowing his hand to brush over her pubic mound. She pushed his hand away, afraid that he might notice the wetness in her crotch.
“Did I hurt you?” Don asked as his breathing became more normal.
“No,” she answered. “Just a little. I like it when you kiss my breasts. And, and…uh…I liked the other too, but I’m tender down there.”
“I can’t wait until we get married and we can go all the way. Let’s get married after graduation. Maybe I’ll get a job instead of college.”
“Oh, no, you must go to college. Perhaps you could become a preacher?”
“Perhaps,” his lack of enthusiasm was noticeable. She worried about his lack of ambition.
“Please, Jesus,” she prayed. “Instill in Don the desire to do your will and work on your behalf. And, Jesus,” she added, “Bless the soul of Sue. She loves you and she needs your guidance to avoid the temptations of sin.” She had a strong suspicion that Sue had already violated the pledge with J. B. the football player.
Two nights later, in the back seat of his father’s car, Maggie wrapped her legs around Don and moved in concert with him in a pantomime of intercourse. He climaxed again. She suppressed the wish that he had lasted a little bit longer as she felt that familiar, deep agitation that preceded her self-induced orgasms.
A few days later, while they were kissing on her sofa, Don unzipped his jeans and guided her hand to his penis. Together they pulled it out of his pants, her hand wrapped around it. “Maggie,” he muttered, “I need…some…ah…relief. I’m afraid I’ll want to do something bad if…ah…you don’t help me.”
She wasn’t sure how to help him, but it was not difficult to learn. A few strokes of her hand and he breathed hard and sighed loudly and his penis jerked wildly and hot sperm surged out of him and fell on her arm and hand. She held his penis until it lost its hardness. It became small and insignificant in her hands. It didn’t even respond when she gave it a few more strokes. As Don lay back on the sofa she wished that he would provide some relief for her, but that would be “dirty” and she was a good girl. She left him alone as soon as she could to wash away the sperm drying on her arm and to change her underwear. Her panties were wet.
That night she asked herself, “Am I violating the pledge?” she asked and answered, “No, the pledge was to abstain from intercourse. I will remain a virgin until I marry. Don? That thought made her uncomfortable.
The next time they met, in Don’s car parked on a lonely country road, she “helped” him again but this time he spurted sperm all over her best white skirt. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping at the wet spots with his handkerchief. “I’ll never do that again. I promise.”
She worried that her dress would have noticeable stains, but she said to him. “It’s all right. I want to make you do that. I want to meet your needs. But not violating our pledge, of course,” she quickly added.
“Of course not,” he answered. “Not until we’re married. Or at least engaged.”
She got her relief the next time they met on that sofa while her parents were out the house attending a church social. At last! She had worried that she was one of those “frigid” women she had heard about. Despite a dozen times when he had rubbed against her and ejaculated in his jeans or in her hand, she had still not climaxed. This time, however, her skirt had worked its way up to her waist and his hand found its way beneath it. He slipped his hand inside she panties and one finger found her slit.
She didn’t sweep his hand away. “Just your hand,” she gasped, “not your finger. Not inside me.” That was going too far. She didn’t know whether a finger inserted into her would cause her to lose her purity or not — but it seemed too risky.
“Okay,” he said. He rubbed his hand over her panties and into her slit and pressed against her clitoris and she hunched in pleasure, unzipping his jeans and pulling his hard penis out.
Maggie’s first man-made orgasm was a wondrous thing. She had never been popular with boys; she was repressed and guilt-ridden; she lacked self-esteem; she was a prude. Don’s hand rubbed her to a climax that left her shaking like a leaf, her body wildly agitated. He hung on to her like a rider on a wild horse.
When she could talk again, she said, “I’ve never felt anything like that before.” He was holding her and she was naked except for her panties, pulled down to her knees. His penis was rubbing against her thigh. “Make me come,” he said. That was the first time he had said that word.
She touched him, and he exploded, sperm spurting. She felt the wetness of the sperm all over her naked thighs and crotch. Suddenly, she was alarmed. “Oh, my God,” she said, leaping up from the sofa. “I could get pregnant. I’ve got to wash this off.”
She pulled my panties off and rushed into the bathroom with him following her. She jumped into the shower, turning the water on as hot as she could stand it. He stood outside the shower. “You won’t get pregnant,” he said. “I didn’t come inside you. Only on you. You can’t get pregnant.”
“I have to scrub it off. I have to be sure. Stand near the front door and warn me if my parents come home.” She finished her shower, found a fresh pair of panties, her bra, pulled her dress on over her head, and put her soiled panties into the dirty clothes bin, first making sure there were no tell-tale signs of sperm spots on them. “I think it’s okay,” she said to Don, who was sitting on the sofa watching her get dressed. “I don’t think any sperm went inside me.” She had also calculated in her head. Her period was due. She couldn’t — shouldn’t — get pregnant just before her period. She remembered learning that in home economics class.
She was worried enough, however, that for a few days she didn’t allow Don to touch her “down there” and kept her clothes on while she stroked him to a climax. Her period came right on schedule, as usual. “Thank you, God,” she said. “I am sorry for my transgression.” She masturbated furiously every night in bed, trying to re-create the intensity of the orgasm she had from Don’s hand.
They were together constantly now. Don came over to her house every morning to walk her to school. They always greeted each other in the kitchen with a kiss, but a week after her experience with the errant sperm, he slipped his hand up her dress and reached under her panties. Her parents had left earlier for work.
“I want to feel you. I make love to you,” he said.
She started to say, “No, not your finger,” but it was already inside her. Would her maidenhead remain intact? She didn’t know — and she was already riding that finger, leaning back against the stove, her legs spread. She unzipped his pants and pulled his penis out. As she felt him nearing a climax, she grabbed a paper towel from the counter and caught his sperm in it. Then, pushing hard against him she cried out, “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Her knees were wobbling so badly that he had to hold her upright or she would have fallen.
After that, every morning she greeted Don in the kitchen without wearing panties. They rubbed each other to a climax and then she put on a pair of panties and they walked to school. At school, whenever they had a moment alone, and at night while studying they made each other climax. Three or four times a day his finger would find her clitoris. She masturbated him an equal number of times.
However, she still had the fear that sperm would find its way into her vagina and she would become pregnant and disgraced in the eyes of her parents, friends, and church. Condoms were one answer, but Don said there was no need for him to wear a condom. “I’m not coming inside you,” he said. “We’re just making out.” She didn’t insist. She had learned in church that condoms interfered with God’s will. Best to avoid any need for condoms.
Her initiative, a sign of her increasing boldness, found a solution. She was masturbating him one evening in the front seat of his father’s car when she decided to lower her head and kiss his penis. The response was encouraging. In record time he ejaculated in her mouth. She realized that she couldn’t get pregnant if she swallowed his cum — and it was exciting to feel his hot, throbbing penis in her mouth and even to taste the salty, sticky sperm. She began to suck Don whenever they had the opportunity and masturbating him when they didn’t.
A few days later she enjoyed her first experience as a recipient of oral sex. She had never felt anything half as good as his wet tongue licking her clitoris and plunging up her vagina.
They were a besotted couple! Don would often spend an hour or more making her climax over and over again. Nor was he a one-shot male. She could suck him to a climax several times in an evening, and next morning he was ready to be jerked off in her kitchen. Jerked-off was a phrase she learned to use.
Don acquired a car that summer as a high-school graduation present. That facilitated their lovemaking — and some discoveries. Don and Maggie double-dated several times with Sue and J.B., the football player and the most popular boy in school.
One hot summer night, by the light of the moon, J. B. and Sue were outside the parked car, leaning against the front fender, kissing. Suddenly, J. B. stripped off Sue’s clothes, unzipped his pants, leaned her over the hood, and penetrated her from the rear. Don and Maggie watched them through the windshield, transfixed by the spectacle of Sue’s breasts bouncing off the hood of the car as J. B., one hand clutching a bolt of her long, red hair, hunched back and forth until collapsing on top of her, his white buttocks reflecting the pale moonlight. Maggie was excited, but disturbed that Sue had violated the pledge.
She was also concerned that Don watched Sue all too attentively. She felt his penis. He was very hard.
“Turn on the car lights,” Sue shouted to Don. “So I can find my clothes.” She found her skirt on the ground and wrapped it around herself and pulled her blouse on, but didn’t fasten the buttons. J. B. found her panties and put them in his pocket. She draped her bra over her shoulder. “Come with me, Maggie,” she said. “I have to pee.”
Sue and Maggie walked down the dirt road a few yards. Sue squatted at the edge of the road. “I’m sorry about that show. We got carried away. It doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s just fucking.” She stood up and adjusted her dress.
Sue put a finger to Maggie’s lips. “You don’t need to say it,” she said. “I promised I wouldn’t have sex until I got married. But I’m not going to get married. Or, at least, not for a long, long time.” She kissed Maggie on the cheek. “God will forgive me. Please, Becky, tell me you forgive me?”
“Of course, I forgive you. ‘Judge not that ye not be judged.'”
Sue laughed. “Let’s go back to the car. She took Maggie by her shoulders. “But, you,” she said, “don’t fuck Don. You’re too serious. It’s a big deal for you. For me, it’s just fun.”
“I won’t have sex with him,” I said. “Unless we get married.”
“Don’t,” answered Sue. “He’s not worthy of you.”
J.B. was leaning against the car when Sue and Maggie got back. Don was down the road, legs apart, his back turned to the car, peeing. Sue got into the car, climbing into the back seat. Maggie started to open the front door, but J.B. put a hand on her arm and pulled her to him. He kissed her and his hand reached inside her blouse and found her nipple. He kissed her harder. She started to pull away from him, but then she yielded, her mouth opened and she accepted his kiss. She pushed her body forward against his, feeling his fingers pinch her nipple.
“Hey, what are you two doing out there?” shouted Sue from inside the car. Maggie pulled away from J.B. in panic. She opened the car door and leaped inside, her breath coming fast.
“Maggie and I were just getting friendly,” J.B. said insouciantly as he got into the back seat of the car with Sue.
“Leave my girlfriend alone,” Sue said. “I mean it.”
Don came back to the car and slid in on the driver’s side and started the engine. “Are you okay?” he asked Maggie. She was plastered against the opposite door, her hands shaking.
“I’m…I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired. I need to go home.”
“Okay. We’ll drop Sue and J.B. off first.”
Maggie was not fine. J.B. had kissed her — and she had kissed him. And she wanted him to kiss her again. That was wrong — very wrong. Didn’t she love Don? Yet, she lusted for handsome, confident J.B., sitting in the back seat joking with Sue while Don — awkward graceless Don — drove the four of them home in his old car. It was all so, so…shabby.
She acceded to Don’s request that she sit closer to him and he draped his arm around her, steering the car with one hand. She felt nothing. She looked at his face, contemplated as for the first time his long nose and receding chin. She was not in love with Don! She had been desperate, deluding herself into thinking that Don was the life partner God had chosen for her. She had been lustful for love and he had met that need. And now, a single kiss from another boy, and that lust for his love had evaporated. The words of the popular song, “I can see clearly now” ran in an endless loop through her mind.
Don dropped off J.B. at his house first and then Sue. As Sue got out of the car, she reached in through the open window, took Maggie’s head in her hands and kissed her on the cheek, A tear trickled down Maggie’s cheek. Sue drew back and gave her a long look. “Are you all right?”
Maggie forced a smile. “It’s not …what you did. It’s me. We’ll talk later.”
“I love you,” Sue said and she skipped away down the sidewalk leading to her house.
Don drove to Maggie’s house and parked on the street in front. The house was dark. Don said, “That was something to see, wasn’t it? Sue and J.B, I mean. It made me hot. How about you?” He unzipped his pants and pulled his penis out and gently pressed her head down to it. A valedictory blow job had become standard on their dates. She complied automatically, taking his penis in her mouth while his hands probed beneath her skirt. She had taken her panties off earlier in the evening to facilitate his access.
Don pulled her head out of his lap and leaned her back against the car door, parting her legs, her skirt around her waist. Her thoughts were elsewhere as he embraced her, his penis probing in her groin. “I love you, Maggie. I want to make love to you, ” he said.
That roused her out of her lethargy. “No, no” she pleaded. She did not want to have sex with Don, but it was too late. His penis slipped inside her, and he began stroking within her. “No,” she said, “We can’t do this. I’ll get pregnant. Stop, Don, Please!”
He acceded to her wishes. “Okay, okay, I’m pulling out,” he gasped with clenched teeth. But she felt the streams of hot sticky sperm in her crotch as he slid his penis out of her and they pulled their bodies apart.
“I didn’t come inside you,” said Don with labored breathing. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I didn’t mean to…It’s all right. We’re going to get married.”
Maggie retrieved her panties and frantically began wiping away the sperm in her pubic hair. She turned over in her mind the revelation that she did not and would never love Don. She saw Don for what he was: mediocre. The desperate sexual desires of a lonely teenage girl had deceived her into believing that there was an emotional bond between them. A single kiss from J.B, a single touch of his hand on her breast, had revealed how shallow her interest in Don was. “No,” she said finally, looking him in the eye. “I won’t marry you. Even if I am pregnant.” She pulled her skirt down to cover herself, opened the car door, got out, and walked to her house without looking back. Don called after her. She ignored him. As she opened the door to her house, she heard the motor of the car turn over and the sound of the tires on gravel as Don drove away slowly.
Inside the house, she rushed to the calendar she kept in the top drawer of her dresser. The X’s on the calendar told the story. It was a time in which she could be fertile. Had Don cummed inside her? He might have. She prayed all night long. “Please, God. Don’t let me be pregnant. I will never touch another man until I am united in holy matrimony. I promise. Please, God. Have mercy.”
Don telephoned several times the next day. She hung up on him without saying a word. A couple of days later Sue came over to her house. After some nervous chit-chat, she asked, “Did you and Don…?”
“No!” Maggie shouted and broke out in tears. “Well, maybe, I don’t know,” she confessed.
Sue took her in her arms and rested her sobbing head on her shoulder. “Don’s telling everybody…..but never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“I could be pregnant.”
“We’ll worry about that when it happens.” Sue stayed with her a long time and they talked and cried together.
Maggie hardly left her house for the next week. It was a small town. Everybody talked and everybody would know. Don was telling people She would be laughed at behind her back. Oh, how the holier-than-thou have fallen! She would see disapproving, or worse, leering, glances directed toward her.
She sat alone in her house, waiting and hoping – and then one morning her period began. God had answered her prayers! She was forgiven. “Maybe,” she thought, as she inserted a Tampax, “I didn’t lose my virginity. Was Don really inside me? Maybe I didn’t violate the pledge. It happened so quickly. It was an accident.” She renewed her vow to marry a preacher and to live an exemplary Christian life to thank God for not punishing her with pregnancy and public ridicule.
Maggie escaped from Arapaho. One day after her period began her parents drove her to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa where she enrolled as a freshman. At Oral Roberts, named for the famous evangelist and faith-healer, she was confident she would meet true Christians – and find caring, sharing Christian love.
