ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 6

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE IN EVERY PLACE, KEEPING WATCH ON THE EVIL AND THE GOOD (PROVERBS 15:3)

            Vermillion and I watched Jimmy Stetson intently as Jenny Oakley knocked on his door. It had been a few weeks since they ran into each other in a bar. Previously it had been a few years since their last encounter.

            They both had had multiple adult beverages that night they mingled in the smokey tavern. With inhibitions lowered and libidos risen, they had engaged in an activity that should be reserved for the marriage bed.

            Jimmy peeked through a gap he made in the curtain. Jenny saw his eyeball staring at her. This made the decision for him and he opened the door. I tried to make him feel self-conscious with his shirt off. But Vermillion inspired Jenny to take in his midriff. He liked it when she shyly bit her lip.

            “Hey Jenny, what’s up?”

            “Um, can we talk for a minute?”

            “Of course, come in.”

            I touched his mind with guilt. I reminded him that he took advantage of a sweet vulnerable young lady. “Let me get a shirt.”

            Vermillion went to work throwing a few temptations into Jenny’s mind. First was the unspoken petition of ‘please leave your shirt off.’ Then, ‘did I really make love with that tanned muscular man that looks like MacGyver’s younger brother?’ ‘ No, you made lust,’ I reminded her. ‘You had a one night stand that left you feeling dirty and cheap.’

            ‘Let desire give you relief from the anguish of your predicament,’ Vermillion encouraged. ‘You already had sex with him.’ Then to me he said with a malicious grin, “Sin is always easier a second time. Even easier as you continue to indulge.”

            Oh how the mighty have fallen! If you’ve noticed how depraved a human being can become when ensconced in sin and rebellion, it is multiple times worse with a fallen angel. I marveled at Vermillion’s desire to destroy someone like Jenny, whose sexual sin stemmed more from insecurity than rebellion.

            I kept guilt and shame forefront on Jimmy’s mind as he went to his dresser and pulled a t-shirt over his head. He exited his bedroom and said, “Look, Jenny, I’m, ah…”

            “I’m pregnant,” she blurted, interrupting him, but wanting to get the news over with.

            Jimmy froze, mouth agape. Jenny turned toward the door and began to make a hasty exit. As she reached for the doorknob, she said, “I just thought you should know of the possibility.”

            Jimmy’s hand covered hers on the doorknob. “Jenny wait… What do you mean I should know of the possibility? You’re not sure you’re pregnant?”

            “Oh no, I’m sure I’m pregnant,” she replied, then cringed. “I just don’t know if you’re the father or not.”

            “Well, that’s dandy,” he responded, running a hand through his hair in disgust. He was always as carful as a philanderer could be. He almost always carried a condom in his wallet. But a key word here was ALMOST always.

            He had failed to replace it after his encounter with a woman the night before his dalliance with Jenny. When Jenny asked him to take her home, he thought about buying one from a machine in the restroom. But then told himself no, he wasn’t going to take advantage of Jenny Oakley in her inebriated state. His motive was to make sure she made it home safe, and without some other guy. At least that’s what his buzzed brain told himself.

            But then, back at her place, she started to do a clumsy dance, imitating the stripper she was dressed like. He found it oddly alluring, this girl who had been so modest, behaving so immodestly. Then when she blatantly…

            “Jenny,” he had drawled. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings by turning her down. So he told her he didn’t have protection.

            “I’m on the pill,” she had breathed huskily into his ear.

            STD’s were another motive of his with the twofold reason for using protection. But Jenny had revealed her sexual history when they were at the bar. She had only been with one guy, her long term relationship. Well, a two year relationship was long to Jimmy.

            “You said you were on the pill,” Jimmy said as they stood in his living room.

            “I was,” she said and then groaned. “But when I had relationship troubles with Devin, I became depressed and lackadaisical. I started to forget to take them from time to time.”

            “Wonderful!” Jimmy said sarcastically. Vermillion was starting off successfully by having Jimmy focus on himself and how this affected him rather than Jenny, who obviously was carrying the tiny child. I needed to counter somehow.

            “Sorry,” she said, hanging her head meekly.

            “Come on, Jimmy, one of the things that always drew you to Jenny was your noble, manly desire to protect those that are weak,” I said.

            “But his sexual instinct is even stronger than nobility,” Vermillion said. I didn’t realize I was verbalizing the thought I put into Jimmy’s head. Vermillion grinned maliciously. “Jimmy likes his freedom, doesn’t he? His freedom to party and pursue. Pursue skirts that is.”

            I ignored my counterpart. One of things I knew that Vermillion didn’t know was that Jimmy  recently began to feel dissatisfied with his philandering lifestyle. He was starting to feel like a dog chasing its tale. It was exciting during the conquest, but empty in the aftermath.

            This dissatisfied feeling of sleeping around began with Jenny a couple weeks ago. As wrong as a night of inebriation and fornication is, he experienced something with Jenny he had never felt before. Love. But because this knowledge was foreign to him. And because these feelings confused and even scared him. And because he felt like he took advantage of her. His response was to run and hide.

            Now she was pregnant and there was a new feeling Vermillion was putting upon him. That feeling was trapped. A second was frustrated. This child might or might not be his. This thought pushed forth the question. “So this other guy, is he a dark man so you’ll know which of us that way?”

            She shook her head. “He has light brown hair and blue eyes.”

            He threw up his hands in frustration. “So it’s a fifty, fifty chance it’s mine or his?”

            She winced. “More like eighty, twenty.”

            “What’s that mean?” he frowned.

            “I mean I was with Devin five or six times to your once, you know, that month.”

            Jimmy gazed cooly at her, bordering on cold. Then he said, “I don’t know whether that’s better or worse.”

            First her mother, then Devin, and now Jimmy. Three negative responses, strike three. She bit her lower lip as she felt tears burn the back of her eyes. Jimmy noticed the glassiness in her windows to the soul. “I’m not holding you responsible in anyway. I almost wasn’t going to tell you, but I thought you had a right to know of the possibility. Goodbye, Jimmy.”

            For a second time she urgently reached for the doorknob. For a second time he covered her hand with his. “Jenny, wait.” She waited. “So I take it you’re having it.”

            “Stop calling my child it!” she said harshly.

            Jimmy felt his eyebrows raise. He had never witnessed Jenny hostile or angry. He raised his hands. “Sorry.”

            “I’m sorry for snapping,” she said, then rubbed her temples.

            “So,” he asked, then unable to say Devin’s name. “Have you told the other guy yet?”

            She nodded.

            “How did he respond?”

            “By giving me two hundred dollars toward an abortion.”

            “Does he know there’s a chance the child is someone else’s?”

            She shook her head.

            “So he didn’t even consider doing the right thing and asking you to marry him?” Jimmy asked and then frowned. When had he himself cared about doing the right thing in relationships?

            “Did you put that thought there?” Vermillion asked me with a smirk.

            “Why, are you concerned?”

            “Hardly. What is Jimmy Stetson’s longest relationship? Four months at the most.”

            “So you’re saying you’d ask me to marry you if I knew for sure it was yours?” Jenny asked as a scold, with sternly folded arms.

            “Well, now, Jenny. You said this other guy and you were together two years, while we only knew each other three months. And that was from one class, an hour a day.”

            “Plus one night for at least six hours between bar and bedroom,” she said bitterly.

            Jimmy was dumbfounded. Although he had been intimate with dozens of women, this was the first accusation of impregnation. “So… What are you gonna do? I mean, you know, what’s your plan?”

            “Right now I’m considering adoption.”

            “Is that what you want?”

            He noticed her eyes get glassy again. Then her lower lip began to quiver. “What I want is to not be pregnant.”

            Jimmy almost put his foot in his mouth and suggested an abortion. But she had already insinuated that wasn’t an option by the disgust at her ex-boyfriend. Plus he knew from their high school days she had been religious.

            “I better go,” Jenny said nervously as she wiped at a tear that leaked from her eye. Then she quickly turned toward his door.

            For a third time Jimmy placed a hand over hers on the doorknob. “Jenny, wait.”

            “Just let me go,” she squealed with a high pitched sob.

            Jimmy reeled back, and she fled through the door and trotted to a rusty yellow Ford Pinto.

            “Go after her,” I urged Jimmy. “If ever a person needed a friend, it was now.”

            “You feel trapped Jimmy,” Vermillion grinned. “No way you want to be involved in  raising another man’s child. Because it likely isn’t yours, just could be.”

            “There’s a reasonable chance it’s yours,” I petitioned.

            But Jimmy just stood there. I suppose it might seem like Vermillion and I were a cartoon. A little red devil with a pitchfork on one shoulder, and an angel in white with a halo on the other. The demonic realm would like you to think that. For they are masters of diversion, temptation and manipulation. For their supreme leader is the father of lies. (John 8:44)

            He told his first lie to the human race in the Garden of Eden, when he suggested to Eve, “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4) Fallen angels are cunning, intelligent, while humans, apart from God, are no match. The Bible warns in Ephesians 6:12 that humanity spiritually wrestles against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in high places.

            But the remedy is sandwiched between this text in Ephesians 6:12! Verse eleven says—Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

            Verse thirteen says—Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. The verses that follow thirteen describe your weapons of spiritual warfare.

            Not even a half an hour after Jenny left, Vermillion gloated. “Now, watch me decisively win this battle for Jimmy’s soul.”

            A knock at Jimmy’s door this time revealed Lexi. She beamed a greeting at him. He grinned back at the beautiful girl. But puzzled, he asked, “How’d you know where I live?”

            “Phone book, silly.”

            She was hotter than ever in Daisy Duke style jean shorts. He could see she was wearing the same red bikini top from earlier in the afternoon. Only she made a feeble attempt at modesty by wearing a large white men’s tank top over it. It was so big for her petite frame that it only made the partially covered bikini top all the more alluring.

            “I was wondering if you would do me a favor?” she asked with a teasing smile.

            “Depends,” he replied with a coy grin.

            “So, the party this evening is a pool party. There’s supposed to be at least two girls per one guy. I don’t feel like competing for male companionship right now, but if I show up with someone who will be the hottest guy there, I won’t have to.”

            Jimmy’s vanity was flattered. His occupation in construction left him with a deep tan and muscular without needing to workout. Plus, if sexy Lexi felt she needed to compete for male attention, what must her bikini clad friends look like? Not to mention her earlier promise, ‘I’ll make it worth your while!’

            “I suppose I could help you out,” Jimmy responded with a sultry smile. He figured this would very much be worth enduring being, at twenty-two, the old guy there.

            “Cha-ching!” Vermillion triumphed.

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 4

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

WHY ARE YOU CAST DOWN OH MY SOUL? AND WHY ARE YOU DISQUIETED WITHIN ME? HOPE IN GOD. (Psalm 42:11)

            “Productive moves,” I told Vermillion.

            “I thought so,” he replied confidently.

            “But all things work together for good to those who love God,” I quoted Romans 8:28.

            “The Son of God said if you love me keep my commandments,” Vermillion challenged. “But does Jenny keep God’s commandments?”

            The demonic realm knows scripture better than humans. That’s why they have been so successful in diverting people away from the truths in which the Bible actually teaches. Often through traditions and religion itself.

            He continued, “No, your little angel, pun intended, was on the verge of self-murder. When I get through with her and the people she looks to for support with the tiny urchin in her womb, she will at a minimum execute him. Then the guilt will put her back into a frame of mind to execute herself as well.”

            “We’ll see.”

            “You even admitted I set her up just fine for destruction.”

            “On the contrary, I believe your arrangement will ultimately give her resolve, not despair.”

            He had seemed self-satisfied but now looked dubious. Satan and his demons are experts at reading body language. They also specialize in knowing just what buttons to push for everyone’s particular temptations. But they can’t read the mind. They can’t force a person to sin.

            ‘Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you’ (James 4:7). Verse 8 is key. ‘Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.’

            Righteous angels also can’t read the mind. But we do have an advantage. God, in whom we ultimately take direction from, can. The advantage the dark side has is fallen human nature and the selfish desires that go along with it..

            Vermillion worked to do, not just a double whammy on Jenny Oakley, but a triple whammy. As painful as it was for me to see her in pain, I needed to stand by and allow it. For I knew something Vermillion didn’t.

            As much as she dreaded it, Jenny felt the need to inform the potential fathers. But first she felt the need to inform her mother. Vermillion paved the way for this encounter by giving her mother trouble with Jenny’s two older half siblings.

            Three days earlier, Jenny’s twenty-five year old sister was sentenced to two years in prison after yet another arrest for theft. Two days later her twenty-six year old brother was fired from yet another job. Then only an hour before Jenny’s arrival, he had asked to borrow money to pay his rent. When it rains it pours!

            Jenny’s mother was clearly stressed. So she decided to postpone informing her mother about her dilemma. But her mother knew she had paid her a visit for a serious reason, so she coaxed it out of her youngest child. Her reaction couldn’t have caused Jenny more pain.

            It was one of those situations where a person would rather have a response of anger. With tremendous remorse, her mother began to weep. A pitiful whimper escaped from her lips as she lamented, “Oh, Jenny. You were my one hope.”

            As bad as she felt as she left her mother’s place, Jenny intended to still tell the two potential fathers. She not only wanted to get it over with, she wanted to know what their reactions would be.

            By the time she got to the front door of Devin’s condo, she felt defiant. Normally meek and timid, her mother’s reaction made her, at first sad, then angry. Angry at Devin. Two years of dreaming about a white picket fence and two or three kids shot down. And why? Was she not pretty enough? Was she not smart enough? Was she not witty enough? Was she not charming enough? Was she not driven enough? Was she too clingy and needy?

            There were eight units in Devin’s condo. He was on the bottom floor in the rear corner of the building. Her finger hovered over the intercom button for unit three. She hated the sound of hearing his mechanical ‘yeah?’ coming through the device. She disliked replying ‘it’s me.’ Then without a word of greeting from him, there was the sound of a buzz as if opening the door in a prison.

            She decided to go around to his back patio instead. What did it matter if he didn’t like it and threw a fussy fit? She would just blurt out, I’m pregnant and you’re… Oh my! She stopped and bit her finger nail. You are the father? You might be the father? How should she put it, what with not being certain of the parentage?

            Then she visualized him crossing his arms and giving her that squinty eyed glare of his. Then asking, who else have you been with if she said might. But who cares? Wasn’t he with someone else himself! After all it was he who wooed her back for a half dozen intimate encounters. It was he who strayed not once but twice. But boy, what a mess not knowing exactly who the father was!

            Six foot tall hedges surrounded the ten by ten patio. There was actually a chain link gate blocking the entry. She had always thought that was silly since a burglar could just plow through the hedges, if he was willing to risk a couple scratches that is. She had only seen Devin work the three digit combination a few times, but she had remembered it.

            Once past the gate she took tentative steps toward the sliding glass door. She raised a hand to rap and then froze. She noticed the tops of two heads that appeared to be joined sitting on the sofa. Why hadn’t she considered that he could be with the other woman? Now she was spying on the pair making out on his couch.

            She took a couple steps back as she prepared to slink away. This obviously wasn’t the right time. She tripped over a patio chair, lost her balance and fell onto a second patio chair. She inadvertently shoved the second chair and with a loud bang it slid into the sliding glass door.

            Thankfully the glass didn’t break, but the couple on the sofa shot up like a couple jack in the boxes. Jenny was mortified! Then stunned! Devin apparently didn’t leave her for another woman after all. The partially dressed person that had been on the sofa with Devin was a guy.

            Devin seemed to shove his companion toward his front door as the two rapidly buttoned up their clothing. Devin moved quickly to the sliding glass door and opened it. Although he used expletives as he asked Jenny what she was doing, he seemed more confused and discombobulated than angry.

            “Jenny, what are you doing here!” he said, more as an accusation than a question.

            “I need to talk to you about something.”

            “Why didn’t you go to the front like a normal person?” he asked with hands on hips.

            Vermillion was inspiring Devin the way he had during most of their association. He was taking control, making her feel she was unworthy and that she should feel grateful to simply be in his presence. He had been the boss in their relationship, and he needed to take charge now. Especially with what she might have seen as she snuck up to his back door and spied.

            I, on the other hand, reminded Jenny of how often she felt humiliation with his condescending ways. I gave her recollection of why she was there in the first place. The pair of thoughts gave her the boldness needed to stand up to him. He had twice dumped her and left her pregnant after coaxing her into satisfying his lust.

            She shrugged and mirrored his hands on hips. Then she spoke loud enough he feared the neighbors overhearing. “I didn’t want to hear your pathetic voice through that squeaky intercom.”

            His frown turned into arched eyebrows. Jenny had never spoken to him like this before. Her reaction to the break ups had been crying and blithering. But then he frowned again. “So what did you feel the need to talk to me about? I’m not taking you back again!”

            “Taking me back? Ha! You’re the one that came crawling back several weeks ago, telling me you made a mistake with…” Now Jenny’s frown turned into arched eyebrows. “That guy.”

            “What guy?” Devin replied, seeming rattled. He turned and looked into his condo, and then back to Jenny. “There’s nobody here.”

            “I know what I saw Devin. You were sitting on the couch with some guy.”

            “Oh him… We had been working out together, then watching a ball game, but he had to leave.”

            “You two appeared to be kissing. You were half undressed when you stood.”

            “What are you talking about!” Devin said testily, but clearly nervous. “I told you we had been working out. Come sneaking up spying on me and then making phony allegations. How dare you!”

            Jenny put her hands up. She wisely realized he was only gonna get angrier if she pushed it. “Look, Devin, let’s just forget about it. There was glare on the glass, I must have been seeing things. Okay?”

            He eyed her suspiciously, Then wanting to move away from what she may or may not have seen, he asked belligerently, “So what did you need to tell me that a phone call wouldn’t have sufficed?”

            “I’m pregnant?” she blurted.

            He looked stunned. Then his brows furrowed and his eyes squinted. Then he sarcastically replied, “Really?”

            “Really,” she responded quietly.

            He began to pace and breath hard in and out of his nose. Then he stopped. “I thought you were on the pill?”

            “I am,” she replied. “But in the aftermath of our break up, I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, and I became lackadaisical and forgot to consistently take them.”

            “So what now, are you trying to trap me?”

            “No, not at all. I just thought you had a right to know.”

            Devin still eyed her skeptically. Although he knew she wasn’t the type to sleep around, he had to ask. “So you’re saying I’m the father, and you’re one hundred percent sure?”

            She shook her head and then hung it in shame. “No, just most likely. You and I were together a half dozen times, but I did have a one night stand a couple days after you left me the second time.”

            “You had a one night stand?” he laughed without humor. “Maybe you should tell him too. Or was it some low life who you don’t even know?”

            “I know him and I plan to tell him.”

            “Who is it?”

            “You don’t know him. He was an old classmate I ran into when I went out with some friends.”

            “Wait here a minute,” he said cooly. He returned and placed two one hundred dollar bills into her hand and closed her fingers around it.

            “What’s this?”

            “It’s for an abortion.”

            “I’m not getting an abortion,” she said, shoving the money back at him, but he ignored the gesture.

            “Yeah,” he laughed sarcastically. “So you’re too moral to get an abortion, but not too moral to get naked with a guy you don’t know.”

            “I told you I knew him.”

            “Oh yeah, how long have you been dating?”

            She dropped the bills on the patio. “Have a nice life.”

            “Jenny wait,” he ordered. She kept going. Then with frightening hostility, he spoke to her back. “If you spread any lies about me, you’ll regret it! Big time!”

            Jenny stopped her hands from trembling by gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. Maybe she should get an abortion, she thought. Did she really want to have a child that was half Devin? But there was a chance it was Jimmy’s baby, small though it might be. For it was only the one time and on the back side of her monthly cycle when she was probably done ovulating.

            Since the odds favored Devin being the father, she decided to procrastinate telling Jimmy of the possibility. Between the ugly encounters with first her mother and then Devin, she didn’t feel she had the fortitude to face a third confrontation that day. So she planned to wait at least until tomorrow. But her meetings with her mother and ex-boyfriend left such a bad taste in her mouth, she ended up waiting a week.

            Like a spiritual chess game, Vermillion and I maneuvered our pieces in the time before Jenny sought out Jimmy. He put into his path a woman that looked like she stepped out of the pages of a men’s magazine. While I caused his eyes to be cast onto something that at one time was a simple piece of blank white paper but now carried a meaningful message.

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 3

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

THEY WHO SIN AGAINST ME WRONGS THEIR OWN SOUL (Proverbs 8:36)

            Jenny Oakley lay sprawled on her bed; her position reminded her of making snow angels as a little girl. She glanced at the bottle of pills on her nightstand and then back at the ceiling. What was she to do? Twenty-two, single, poor and pregnant. She turned her head back to the nightstand, recalling the haunting words from Becky yesterday. Then she watched her hand move toward the bottle.

            “Jenny,” Becky had begun her judgement with a soft tone. Her condemning words ironically sounded soothing, sweet and dripping with honey. “Given what you confided to me the other day, I’m afraid I had to make a tough, tough decision. But as head deaconess, it’s my responsibility to uphold integrity… I’m afraid I can’t allow you to teach the children’s Bible  class going forward.”

            “Stop tempting her with the pills,” I told Vermillion.

            “She has free will,” he replied menacingly. “You put things in her way; I put things in her way.”

            “Why are you so filled with hate? Why do you want to destroy a sweet, innocent girl?”

            “Innocent? Ha! She’s a fornicator. She doesn’t even know if the daddy of her love child is Devin Hart or Jimmy Stetson.”

            “No thanks to you taking advantage of her desperation.”

            “Oh poor little heartsick Jenny. The Christian Bible tells its believers to come out of the world, not adopt its philosophies. She should have kept her skirt on until she was married, right? Not only that, she became intoxicated and had a one night stand with Jimmy Stetson.”

            “If anyone sins, they have an Advocate with Jesus,” I told him, paraphrasing 1 John 2:1.

            “Oh yeah? So apparently she had to use that Advocate over hundred times during the last two years. Every time she climbed into bed with old Devin baby.”

            “In her mind she was committing to him for life.”

            “Really?” he drawled sarcastically. “Funny, I never heard any vows. Never saw a wedding band slipped onto her finger. As matter of fact, in the beginning, as I’m sure you recall, he told her a man has needs. He suggested he would move on if those needs weren’t met. Shouldn’t he have at least suggested establishing a home together one day? She gave into ‘a man has needs’ without so much as a hint of commitment.”

            “They met in church, so she assumed he was in it for the long haul.”

            “Are you excusing sin?” he taunted.

            “Of course not! But I am trying to keep a desperate young woman from destroying herself for eternity.”

            “Too late, old friend,” he replied, emphasizing old and our former friendship before he became part of the third of angels cast out with their leader.

            “Why are you so cruel? Jenny’s done absolutely nothing to you.”

            “Oh yes she has, by default. We were kicked out of heaven for what you call sin. She’s a sinner. Jesus called Satan a murderer (John 8:44). Well old friend, this little hussy considerers herself a believer, while at the same time she’s contemplating murdering herself along with that little bun in the oven.”

            “You seem to be ignoring a huge difference.”

            “Am I? Or is sin not sin then?”

            “You and your cohorts sinned in the light of God’s glory. Without a fallen supernatural being taking advantage of weak human nature.”

            Vermillion grunted angrily and coaxed Jenny to not only reach for but grab the pills. I blocked and countered by causing her to notice the mail she had thrown onto the nightstand before she crashed onto her bed. Of the three pieces, two were junk mail. Then she frowned at the anonymous note I had arranged to arrive in her box.

            I might have had a text sent, but this was the summer of 1990, several years before cell phones. The brief communication simply said, ‘You can’t change the beginning, but you can start now and change the ending. Before you do something desperate, go talk to the two potential fathers. And I do mean both! They have a right to know.’

            Her frown deepened as she reread the note. She unconsciously opened the drawer of the nightstand and pushed the pills inside and closed it. Vermillion expressed frustration. He called me a few unflattering names and threatened to double down.

            Jenny wondered who of the two women she had confided in had sent the note. But wait, she thought, as an old saying came to mind. ‘Can three people keep a secret? Yes, if two are dead.’

            Maybe Trixie had told the other two girls she went out with during that night of indiscretion with Jimmy Stetson. What was she thinking that day, before it turned into night? But she had been curious.

            Curiosity is one of the most successful tricks my counterparts use, curiosity of the forbidden. What would it be like to smoke a cigarette or even a joint? What would it be like to experiment with some form of forbidden sex? What would it be like to try a beer or wine cooler?

            In hindsight, Jenny spending an evening with wild young women, who went by the names Trixie, Roxy, and Skippy, was poor judgement. Especially when Trixie declared happily, “We’re virtually the same size!” She then proceeded to dress Jenny like her peers. Complete with a low cut top, high rising skirt, black stockings, and shoes with three inch heels. Then they decorated her head with what seemed like a whole can of hairspray and gaudy make up.

            She felt like a clown and could hardly walk in the shoes. She regretted accepting the invitation Trixie had regularly offered her. The two women worked together as waitresses at a diner. Trixie was always sharing stories with her coworkers about carnal adventures she experienced with her girlfriends. And, well, Jenny was curious, telling herself she was just going to be an observer.

            Jenny rarely drank alcohol and had never had more than one in a sitting before that night. But she had downed two wine coolers before they even had left Trixie’s apartment. She was buzzed and kind of liked it. She also felt quite sexy for a clown.

            By the time they stopped at a third bar, Jenny was feeling no pain. She was also starting to feel no coordination, and before they exited Roxy’s car, she ditched the three inch heels for her own flats.

            Guys were hitting on her left and right! But she just giggled and replied ‘no thanks’ to offers of drinks or dance. Trixie playfully rebuked her. “Honey, when you dress hot, guys tend to want to keep you cool.”

            “What do you mean?” Jenny asked naively.

            Trixie emitted a throaty laugh. “I mean you drink for free.”

            “Check it out, Jimmy Stetson just came in,” Skippy declared as she pointed to three guys who came in together and sat at the bar.

            “He’s just a tease,” Roxy lamented. This comment made Jenny frown. She had only ever heard of girls labeled teases.

            “Tell me about it,” Skippy lamented. “I practically told him I wanted to go to bed with him and he blew me off.”

            “I guess all three of us have struck out with him in one way or another,” Trixie said.

            “Not many guys in the bar scene are out of our league,” Skippy drawled. “But Jimmy Stetson’s in a league of his own.”

            “Now don’t give him so much credit,” Trixie differed. “He’s just a hot construction worker, not some millionaire playboy.”

            “Maybe so,” Skippy said. “But I’ll make out with a Sting look alike any day.”

            “I think he looks more like a modern James Dean,” Roxy differed. “All cool and brooding.”

            “I say he looks like MacGyver,” Trixie added, then turned to Jenny. “What do you think?”

            “I agree with Trixie, when I knew him he always reminded me of MacGyver.”

            All three stopped with drinks half way to their mouths. Skippy asked, “What do you mean when you knew him?”

            Jenny shrugged. “Jimmy and I shared a lab table in science our senior year of high school.”

            “Go say ‘hi’ to him then,” Skippy challenged, seeming a bit jealous.

            Roxy pointed at Trixie, Skippy and then herself. “One, two, three strikes, we struck out.” Then she challenged. “Batter up!”

            If Jenny hadn’t been so buzzed, she would have sunk down in her chair, or maybe even have fled. On the other hand, she never would have admitted knowing Jimmy if she had been sober. But with her inhibitions down, she boldly arose and went to her former classmate and immediately teased him about a little accident he had. “Hey big fella, break any beakers lately?”

            He squinted at her with a smirk as his brain processed who the woman in front of him was. Then he grinned, “Jenny Oakley?”

            “One and the same,” she said a little drunkenly as she spread her arms.

            “I beg to differ,” he replied.

            She frowned. “What do you mean?”

            “You’re not the same Jenny I remember.”

            Understanding his implication, she cocked a hip, put a hand on it, and flipped her hair with her other hand. “You like my new look.”

            He turned to fully face her on his bar stool and folded his arms. “No offense, but I liked the old Jenny better.”

            Her face held a dumbfounded look as she gazed at him. He laughed. “Sorry, that was cold. I had few beers before we got here, it must have given me diarrhea of the mouth.”

            “No, that’s okay,” she giggled and actually touched his arm. “Would you mind telling me why? Just tonight with this little experiment, I’ve had more guys, um, checking me out, than I ever have before in my whole life. So I find it a little puzzling that you preferred the old me, so to speak.”

            “Believe it or not, I prefer a pretty girl who dresses wholesome. Keeps a guy guessing.”

            Jenny’s buzzed brain had trouble comprehending. She didn’t mean to make audible her thought. “Me pretty?”

            “Yes, you pretty,” he grinned.

            Despite the effects of adult beverage, she now blushed. Jenny had always felt filled with not quite. Her sandy hair was not quite blonde. Her gray eyes were not quite blue. Her eyes were not quite good enough to avoid glasses. Her teeth were not quite straight enough to avoid braces. Her grades were not quite an A average. Never interviewed quite well enough to get a good job.

            “So you don’t typically dress like this?” he asked.

            “No, never, I mean until now, you know tonight,” she pointed at her girlfriend’s table. The three were staring but looked away as soon as Jimmy’s gaze turned on them. “Trixie talked me into it.”

            “Oh yeah, how come?”

            Inhibitions loosened her tongue some more. “My boyfriend of almost two years dumped me for someone else a couple months ago. A few weeks ago he pleaded with me to take him back, saying he made a big mistake. I gave in and took him back. Long story short, a couple days ago, not even a month into our reunion, he tells me he and his wench got back together.

            “So, at work. Trixie and I are both waitresses at Grandma Em’s Diner. I was crying on Trixie’s shoulder about being played, or whatever it was he pulled… By the way, I wasn’t literally crying on her shoulder, it was ah, um, what do you call it?”

            “A figure of speech.”

            “Yes, a figure of speech. So Trixie convinced me that the best medicine would be a fun girl’s night out. Then before we left her place, she talked me into wearing some of her clothes.”

            “So you’ve never dressed like a stripper before?” he asked bluntly, almost insultingly.

            “No, never,” she said wide eyed. “As a matter of fact, I was wearing her shoes with three inch heels, but I put back on my own shoes that have none.”

            She kicked up a leg to reveal her low heeled pumps, and the shoe slipped off her foot and sailed off in an arch ten feet away. “Opps.”

            Jimmy retrieved the shoe. As he sat back down, he asked his buddy, “Don, will you slide down another stool so Jenny can sit down next to me?”

            “No problem,” Don grinned maliciously through a weeks’ worth of stubble and winked.

            “Sit down and give me your foot,” Jimmy ordered.

            Jenny obeyed with her eyes still wide and placed her foot on Jimmy’s lap. What happened next is why alcohol is called spirits. The more you use and abuse the substance, the more a being like Vermillion has a door open to tempt or even destroy a soul. Due to their inebriated state, coupled with lust and desire, my enemy’s work was made easy. I, on the other hand, was pretty much a helpless witness.

            Jenny was so enraptured by Jimmy holding both her foot and her shoe, she was oblivious to how high her already short skirt had hiked. I made her aware of his pause as he replaced her shoe on her foot, and she noticed where his eyes were transfixed. She wiggled on the stool as she worked her skirt back down to mid-thigh. Jimmy found this act of modesty in her immodest attire all the more alluring.

            “You must be Cinderella,” he grinned as the shoe fit.

            She giggled. “Then you must be my prince.”

            He kissed her and the table of three applauded. Their applause rippled into more clapping and cheers throughout the tavern. Jenny looked embarrassed, but Jimmy somehow looked both annoyed as well as amused. “Why can’t people mind their own business?”

            The night quickly became a blur. She vaguely remembered her and Jimmy stumbling into her apartment. She recalled their passion as if it was a dream. She with skin crawling remembers the morning quite well though. She was so nauseous she couldn’t make it to the bathroom and threw up in her garbage can. Thankfully, Jimmy had slipped out before she woke, so she at least didn’t have the embarrassment of him watching her hurl.

            Jimmy never called and Devin was back with the other woman. What should she do? Who sent the note? What did it matter? She read it again. Start where she was? She could change her ending?

            So start as single pregnant woman who was beyond broke with almost a thousand dollars debt on one of her credit cards and six hundred on another? Vermillion had her considering abortion, so I devised a plan of my own.

            Emma, the older lady that lived below Jenny on the ground floor, hated to impose on people. Let’s just say I persuaded her to call Jenny. “Hi Honey, I hate to bother you, but my brother is coming for supper tonight and I discovered I have a mouse nest in my little grill. With my recent hip replacement, I’m skittish about walking it down to the edge of the woods to get rid of it.”

            “Oh, Mrs. Vargus don’t you dare try to do that,” Jenny told her kindly. “It’s no problem at all. I’ll be right down.”

            Jenny gave a little squeal of surprise when she cleaned out the grill. She had expected the little pile of fluff to be empty. But as she dumped it at the edge of the woods, four hairless babies and the mother fell onto the ground. The mother began to hall her baby mice away one by one.

            Despite the monster a thousand times bigger a few feet away, the brave little creature came back for all four of her offspring, hiding each one safely, in her tiny mind, under some leaves. Jenny put a hand to her mouth and whimpered as tears flowed down her cheeks. “Lord, please forgive me for what I was considering. A mouse is a more devout mother than me.”

            She resolved to contact Devin Hart that very day. As a matter of fact she would call him as soon as she was done helping Mrs. Vargus. He did have a right to know he was likely going to be a father.

            She bit her lip. Likely! Why did she have to have that one night stand with Jimmy Stetson? That was so unlike her! Now she couldn’t be one hundred percent certain that the child was Devin’s, just mostly sure.

            “Hello?” A male voice droned over the phone line.

            “Hey Devin, it’s me,” Jenny said evenly. “We need to talk about something.”