PROLOUGE

BILLY BOB BOOKER

Carly and I sat on a park bench on a beautiful afternoon. We were watching Willa playing with her one-year-old son on a slide. Then Carly’s toddler daughter joined the mother-son duo. Willa beamed at the tiny pair as she helped both take turns negotiating the slide.

Willa was a vision of wholesome beauty in her long yellow dress. The sunlight was glowing off her long, silky, brown hair, and her large, exotic amber eyes shined with joy as she supervised the tiny people. A little bump protruded from her abdomen where a second child was developing. You’d never have guessed that, not quite two years previous, she’d been a hooker.

That’s actually how I met Willa. I’d solicited her services – not for sex, but I’d hired her to go to a wedding with me. Around two years before that, Carly, who had been my longtime girlfriend, had left me for another man. We were both invited to the wedding of mutual friends, and I didn’t want to show up alone. I’m ashamed to admit that I offered to pay Willa to attend that wedding with me and pose as my girlfriend.

“She’s truly amazing, Billy,” Carly smiled reluctantly. “You know, she’s made me realize how hurt you must have felt when I was with Niles. Isn’t life strange, though? If you wouldn’t have hired Willa to make me jealous, she might still be a hooker. Instead, she’s a married mother of almost two children.”

“I’m just glad my childish ploy ended up working out in the long run,” I said, shaking my head. “I still feel guilty that you and Niles broke up shortly afterward. I admit that I wanted you to be jealous; but beyond that, I had no devious intentions. I just didn’t want to feel like a wallflower shmuck that had been ditched when I attended the wedding. But come on, you were mine first before Niles.”

She gave my hand a squeeze. “Look, I admit that seeing you with Willa made me jealous, but you know that’s not why Niles and I broke up. I had realized by that time that he was a jerk and I had made the biggest mistake of my life leaving you for him. I actually was surprised when you forgave me and took me back. You know what, though? I don’t think you ever told me exactly how you found Willa.”

“What do you mean?” I asked with some reservation.

“I had confessed to you how selfish I’d been and how wrongly I felt I’d treated you,” she told me. “Yet you, being the good Christian man that you are, found it in your heart to forgive me. So, tell me – how did this high standard guy I’m sitting next to find a prostitute to pretend to pose as his girlfriend? I guess I always assumed you found her via some type of back-page advertisement.”

“No, it wasn’t that at all,” I told her. “One of my biggest sins ever was having premarital sex with you in the first place. That’s what led me to utter foolishness and almost obsession with wanting to get you back, and in desperation, trying to hire a prostitute.”

“Okay, okay,” Carly whined with irritation. “We’ve been over this before. I know that Willa sold sexual favors, but you’ve never told me about how and where you met Willa. We’ve been over the why you sought Willa, I’d like to know how and where.”

“Can you promise to keep it a secret?”

“Of course,” she replied, seeming insulted.

“Lyle was using her services, and he suggested I do likewise,” I told her.

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me even a little,” Carly frowned. “I never understood why a wholesome, rugged guy like you associated with a smarmy womanizing weasel like Lyle.”

Lyle Lake had been my best friend since childhood, and Carly’s judgmental statement about Lyle irritated me to the core. And she proved she wasn’t so perfect herself. Though Carly didn’t cheat on me physically before our breakup, she certainly did in spirit by desiring to be with Niles. Jesus’s admonition during His sermon on the mount in Matthew 5:28 applies to women also.

“But you didn’t use Willa for any form of intimacy, right?”  Carly asked with a scowl.

“No,” I said emphatically. Now I had to fight down anger. Even though I didn’t have sex with Willa when I hired her services, why should Carly care? After all, she’d had been sleeping with Dr. Niles when Willa was considered under my employment.

“So what if I had been intimate with her?” I asked with a determined, even tone. “You had broken up with me, remember?”

“Oh, I know,” she said, giving my hand another squeeze. “I’m just being nosey and curious; I’m certainly not passing any type of judgment. I’m just so impressed how you ultimately turned a horrible situation into a blessing.”

Although part of me felt flattered by her words, the rest of me was annoyed that she had caused the horrible situation. Yet it amazed me that God can take an ugly situation and make it beautiful. My mind’s eye went back to the way Willa looked when I first saw her. I shook off that lustful image and beheld the lovely image of her and the children laughing.

“So it was actually Lyle’s idea to use Willa to make me jealous?” Carly continued her probe into the past.

“No, he suggested I use Willa for sex,” I told her bluntly. “After Lyle showed me pictures of her in an adult magazine and what a stunningly attractive woman she was, I came up with the idea of taking her to Baily and Tyrone’s wedding.”

Carly’s mouth gaped open as if in shock, even as her eyes danced with glee. “What?” she asked with a laugh. “Billy Bob Booker has looked at porn?”

“No,” I began to stammer. “Well, not exactly. I mean, it was brief. Just a few pages of Willa in a men’s magazine. Lyle stuck it right in my face before I knew what he was doing. I almost had no choice… I think… Anyway, I didn’t see people having sex, so it wasn’t porn… I think… It was just Willa by herself. I think they call it a layout or erotica or some such.”

“So, she was nude in this layout?” Carly smirked sarcastically.

“Well… Yeah,” I replied uncomfortably, as I wiggled on the bench.

“Once again, life is strange,” Carly said as she watched her daughter play with Willa’s son. “This beautiful, wholesome vision wouldn’t be happening right here in front of us if you hadn’t looked at a girly magazine. Isn’t it strange that’s where it all began?”

No, I thought to myself. It began when Carly not only turned down my marriage proposal, but in the next breath told me there was someone else. So was it her infidelity or my impropriety that led to this wholesome image? Both? Was it accidental or providential? Both?

CHAPTER 1

TWO YEARS PREVIOUS

BILLY BOB

Carly Brooks and I became an item during our sophomore year of high school. Her conservative, evangelical church strongly encouraged their young little lambs to marry within the faith. So once Carly and I became established as a couple, I joined her church.

One of the main things that drew me to Carly when we became lab partners in a science class at the beginning of our sophomore year was her strange mixture of confidence and shy insecurity. Plus, I thought she was beautiful. However, I could tell that my friends thought she was average looking at best. Early on Lyle even called her a dog. It was the closest I ever came to punching him. He could tell, and never said it again.

Carly was bigger than the average girl, but strong and athletic. She was just under six feet tall. She had a long blonde hair, but it was often course and frizzy. Her blue eyes were close set, which gave her a stern appearance. Her nose was narrow, and her lips were thin. When she wasn’t smiling, I could see how my buddies were less than impressed with her appearance. But she had nice skin, and even a five-foot five buddy of mine admired her long legs as she performed on the volleyball court.

As for myself, I was certainly no prize. My face seemed like a wedge, and my flat nose made me look like a thug. My own eyes were blue and close set, getting us the occasional inquiry of being brother and sister. My light brown hair was curly and unruly, but it garnered me compliments for some reason, especially in the summer when it acquired blondish highlights from countless hours in the sun.

I was big at six-foot-five when I was fully grown and around two hundred thirty pounds. This made Carly happy, as being with me made her look smaller. For a long time, I had virtually zero body fat as I had always exercised vigorously when I wasn’t working as a landscaper. This was a trade I had picked up at the age of sixteen thanks to my good pal Lyle.

Lyle’s father, Larry Lake, was the proprietor of Lake Enterprises. It was a very successful, generational company that specialized in property with three divisions: development, realty, and landscaping. His older brother, Lance, was groomed to run development. His sister, Lisa, ran reality, and Lyle, the youngest and most spoiled, oversaw landscaping.

When we were in high school, Carly and I had been saving ourselves for marriage. To be honest, I found this to be a daunting task, yet a worthwhile endeavor. However, by the time we were seniors, Carly and I had progressed from holding hands and sharing chaste kisses to rather heavy make-out sessions with bodily explorations. This inevitably ended up with us consummating our relationship the night of our senior prom. Personally, I justified this with the concept that we were going to get married one day anyway, so why wait? We already were committed, weren’t we? Apparently not.

Hindsight is better than foresight, and Biblical principles are the best guide to life. If I could do it over, not only would I have not had premarital sex, I wouldn’t have indulged in the heavy make-out sessions either. But the complicated thing about being an immature teenager, is hormones so easily overrule principle.

To be honest, the feelings of shame and guilt that entered my brain due to disobedience to spiritual laws were overpowered by my love, lust, and desire for Carly. Also, the more we indulge sin rather than repent, the less offensive it seems to us. I’ve learned the hard way that we can’t trust feelings, but we can trust truth.

Also, the demonic realm is a spirit of force. When you couple that with our sinful natures, for all have sinned (Romans 3:23). Apart from God we are no match for spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12). God is a gentleman, He doesn’t force Himself on us, He draws us. He stands at the door and knocks (Revelation 3:20).

It’s up to us to choose Him, to follow the gentle persuading of the Holy Spirit, also known, as Jesus described as the Comforter or Helper (John 15:26). You can usually sense the presence of the Holy Spirit through what a large portion of humanity refers to as your conscience. Anyway, back to my twisted romance.

By the end of summer Carly had left for the University of Iowa to pursue a nursing degree. I stayed in Cedar Rapids twenty minutes to the north to work as a full-time landscaper with Lyle. It was just enough separation to fuel Carly’s and my desire for each other. We saw each other almost every weekend, plus holiday breaks and vacations.

When Carly graduated with a nursing degree, she acquired a job at one of the hospitals in Cedar Rapids. After giving her a few months for her to settle into her new job, I figured it was time to make things permanent, to issue a marriage proposal.

After a less than stellar romantic dinner on her 22^nd birthday, the mood wasn’t right. Typically, we would make love after a special dinner, I would pop the question after that, or so I thought. Unfortunately, Carly looked extremely forlorn, dampening my intentions considerably.

“Billy, I’m just not in the mood tonight,” Carly told me with a couple of sighs as I pulled up in front of her apartment building.

“You’re only 22,” I tried joking. “You shouldn’t feel sad about a birthday until you’re at least 40.”

Carly smiled sadly at my lame attempt at humor and patted my leg. “It’s not that,” she moaned. “Look, Billy, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Open your birthday present first,” I said as I pulled a colorful package from under my seat.

“Oh, Billy, you shouldn’t have,” Carly lamented seeming genuinely irritated. I frowned, puzzled at her sour mood.

What did she mean I shouldn’t have? She’d been my girlfriend for six years. I’d never failed to get her a birthday present, as well as Christmas and Valentine gifts – not to mention countless spontaneous presents.  But when she saw what I had in store, I’d been sure it would snap her out of her funk.

She opened the package so slowly it was as if she expected a box of excrement. She frowned as she gazed down at the old textbook on electric motors. She looked at me as if in disgust. What had gotten into the girl of my dreams? Sure, she was a pretty serious person who was a little bit on the bossy side. But over the last few weeks she had developed into an absolute crank. I assumed it was because a marriage proposal was overdue. When she discovered that there was more to her present than an old textbook, her mood would drastically change.

“What’s this?” She spit at me. “What do I care about electric motors?”

“Open it up to about the middle of the book,” I told her. She did as I instructed with an intense frown and pursed lips. Then her mouth dropped open in stunned amazement as she saw where I had cut a hole in the pages and placed an engagement ring inside.

“Carly, will you marry me?” I asked as I took her hand. Tears ran down her cheeks as she stared as if in a trance at the ring. “Carly, will you be my wife?” I tried again as I grinned from ear to ear. I thought she was so surprised, so filled with glee, that she couldn’t speak. Then she looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. I’d been certain this would make her day. However, it didn’t.

“I’m sorry. I can’t,” she blurted.

Now it was my turn to be stunned and speechless. Had I heard her, right?

“Say again?” I finally stammered.

“I can’t marry you, Billy, I’m sorry,” she repeated as tears streamed out of her eyes.

“But after six years, don’t you think it’s about time?” I wanted to know.

“Billy,” she said gently, placing a hand on my knee. “There’s someone else.”

My whole being became electrified and then turned numb. “You’re seeing someone else?” I mumbled.

“I am,” she replied with a choked sob. “This is just so much harder than I expected.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s a doctor at the hospital.”

“And you and this doctor have been having sex?”

She shook her head vehemently. “I told him I needed to end things with you first.”

“Classy,” I spit sarcastically.

“Thank you,” she said softly, not picking up on the sarcasm.

“So that’s why you’ve been in a funk the last month,” I said.

“Have I?”

“Ya think?” I tried not to shout.

“Billy, don’t be like this.”

“Like what?”

“Angry. It’s not like you,” she said softly. “I expected you to cry but not become hostile.”

“Well, forgive me for not being devastated the way you saw fit. I invested six years in a woman I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. Suddenly, she’s ending things so she can fornicate with another guy.”

“It’s more than that,” she said, becoming hostile herself. “This wasn’t an easy decision. This last week especially has been the most difficult of my life. Just so you know, I didn’t fully decide to leave you until today. A couple of weeks ago, Niles gave me until my birthday to decide whether I chose you or him.”

“Niles?” I spat. “Your new guy’s name is Niles? How fitting.”

“Billy, don’t be like this,” Carly said sternly, as if I was the offending party.

“Don’t be like what?” I spewed. “I just asked you to marry me, and instead of saying yes after a six-year courtship, you say there’s someone else. So forgive me if I’m not reacting in a positive way.”

Why did I keep saying forgive me, albeit sarcastically? Carly began to sob harder, and neither of us said anything until her crying subsided in a couple of minutes. “Billy, I’m truly sorry. It’s just that forever is a long time. I feel that Niles being a doctor and me being a nurse, that having a future with him makes more sense. You’re both wonderful guys, but he and I are ultimately a better fit. I know you and I have time invested, but for me, the fit with Niles just seems more right.”

“Right, because he’s a doctor, you’re a nurse, and I play in the dirt for a living,” I said with controlled anger. “I thought you put spirituality above how a person earns a living.”

“Niles is very religious,” she tried to explain. “He used to be a deacon in his church.”

“He used to be?” I asked, trying to find fault with him. “Why used to be?”

“He was married before, and when he and his former wife filed for divorce, he was removed from the position. Not only that, his church was her church first, so he’s not comfortable going there anymore. He’s anxious to start fresh by attending my church.”

Her description of Nile’s situation was prophetic of what was soon to be my situation, albeit with a major difference. I had been attending Carly’s church for almost six years. I too was a deacon. Yet I had never been asked to step down, nor did I expect to be because of this new development. However, there was no way I was going to attend “Carly’s” church anymore. Our church!

This realization gave me almost as much pause as Carly’s bombshell of dumping me. I had a lot of really close friends there. To use religious slang, I had numerous brothers and sisters in the Lord. So, in a way, I was being dumped on multiple levels.

“I guess I’m done there then,” I mumbled as my brain whirled in this surreal moment.

“Done where?” Carly frowned.

“Going to our church,” I mumbled. “I mean your church.”

“Oh, Billy don’t stop coming to church because of this,” Carly said with wide eyes. “I was hoping we could remain friends. I was hoping that you and Niles would become friends.”

“Are you kidding me!” I responded angrily. “You seriously think I would want to be friends with your lover? You think I can just sit in church and watch you share a hymn book with Dr. Niles every week? You seriously think I’d want to be friends with the guy that stole my girl?”

“Now, Billy, jealousy is a sin,” Carly scolded with an annoyingly calm and mild tone.

I’ve always been a rather patient man; but with her reprimand about jealousy given the situation, I had my jaw clenched so tight it quivered. Besides, wasn’t her dumping of me some type of sin? Wasn’t it some type of broken promise, breach of promise, or infidelity?

When we finally parted ways, she actually tried to shake my hand. Seriously, a handshake when I was expecting to make love that evening after she gleefully accepted my marriage proposal. I ignored her extended hand as I also did her effort to say goodbye. A broken heart is no fun, especially when it happens suddenly. How could I ever love or trust again?

 But time does heal most wounds. So, six months after Carly dumped me for Doc Niles, I was mostly recovered from the emotional pain. It was also six months after Carly dumped me when I found myself due to attend the wedding of Bailey McDonald and Tyrone Culver. Tyrone was one of my best friends at Westside Church of the Open Bible. Which was Carly’s church.

There was no way I was gonna let my good buddy Tyrone down by not attending. But I’m ashamed to admit that pride can be insidious. How could I support my friend and save face with Carly and Dr. Niles also in attendance? My best friend from the secular world provided a solution. It wasn’t the wisest choice I ever made. Although God ultimately used my foolishness to save a soul, I don’t recommend hiring a prostitute. Even if you have chaste intentions within the transaction.