Earth Angel

KNOCKED UP

This time "Reverend Steve" ravished her in church. During the communion. Marilyn Monroe, that is. Easter, 1955.

Blame it on the over-long communion perhaps and certainly on his strange declining to participate. Instead of taking communion as usual, Steve sat beneath his halo in the back balcony, his pale green Sunday suit bringing out all the more his big brown bedroom eyes as they went into trance. "Reverend Steve" had tried hard to make it through the Easter service without his dream girl. But there was no denying Her when She wanted what She wanted.

My God, he kept saying to himself, as his eyes self- dilated upon God's profane rival until Her Sacred Sexiness took up the whole of his vision.

She sat on the aisle of a pew right below him. She sat the way God makes all pretty young females sit, on the edge of an immaculate conception, an idol of unconscious sex. Her breasts heaving rhythmically as She sang the assigned hymn hypnotized him and made it seem a hymn to him.

Ahem. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, God kept reminding him.

How about goddesses? Steve wondered. You know, Lord, if you don't want any other gods before you, you shouldn't make sexy girls.

Then, fatally, as had become the rule lately, the Jesus pinned above the altar grinned and winked at him. Well, what could he do? If Jesus got a charge from it, what could he do? So at last he gave in to it. Steve reached down with his eyes and ripped off the robin-egg blue Easter suit and the silky suit next to Her birthday suit. What suited Her suited him just fine.

Suddenly naked, She did what only She can do with dignity under such circumstances. Rising majestically and dressed only in Her halo and heels, She smiled her Marilyn Monroe smile, queenly inviting wholesome good clean fun. So he piously ravished Her Holiness, good and clean and full of fun. Right there in the aisle as the congregation consummated communion by celebrating the resurrection and the life everlasting with the lusty singing of "Christ our Lord is risen today; hallelujah."

Steve now sweated in a fever of imaginary consummation, from the phantom realization of a devoutly wished for communion of bodies to complement the communion of souls. Coming out of his trance, he felt self-conscious and expected the entire congregation to swivel in their seats and stare up at him. He looked quickly down at his pants for "pecker tracks," and, relieved at finding none, leaned back into his bench seat. Fortunately, he was alone this time. His friends, Ben and Davey, were in the Boys' Choir up front, lending music to the general wail. Usually they sat together, poking and passing the time with paper games like "Tic Tac Toe" and "Battleship." Without them, Steve was abandoned to his visions of longing.

But he knew he couldn't walk out like that, in a sweat, his eyes probably glazed over. Noting the preparations for the doxology, he desperately searched for a way to break his fever. He tried to cool his mind by remembering the sermon. Pastor Tetzel had made a Lutheran point. Christ is risen and faith in Him alone will serve. Do not pin your hopes on worldly salvation. God is all, God will love, and God will save. The Bible tells us so. Love God, the pastor had concluded.

But, alas, Steve loved Her as well. Or more.

At last the doxology began, signaling the end of the service. With Pastor Tetzel leading the recessional, the choir now marched out. Ben looked up just as he passed under the balcony, saw Steve peering down, and grinned up at him with eyes crossed. Steve made a gargoyle face and grinned fondly back.

As he got up to leave, Steve glanced forward at the plaster Christ above the altar and looked for a sign of God's love. But Jesus' laughing eyes seemed to deflect down upon Mrs. Tetzel, the pastor's voluptuous wife, who, just to stage left of the podium, was playing a grand, triumphal postlude on the organ, that always ended orgasmically. Steve gave the pretty woman a wondering once-over, then, turning, filed out with the others, climbed slowly down the stairs from the balcony, and shook the pastor's hand at the door, the very hand that caressed Mrs. Tetzel.

Apparently unaware that Steve had not taken communion that day, Pastor Tetzel made his countenance to shine upon "Reverend Steve," as he jokingly called this boy who had indicated a desire to enter the ministry, and said, jovially, "Well, Rev, time for our little talk. Let's get together this week and find a good Lutheran college to launch you toward the seminary."

Pushed out by those behind, Steve could only nod assent as he was forced down the stone steps to the sidewalk below. He paused on the sidewalk and looked back at the familiar scene of dressed-up worshippers descending back into the world, then ambled off around the corner of the huge, gray-stoned church. Crossing the street to the shaded parking along the sycamore-lined boulevard, he stopped, removed his coat, and leaned possessively against an orange-and-white Hudson Wasp, his parent's car but one he had talked his father into buying against his father's better judgment. He caressed the rear fender as he leaned against the side, waiting for Dolly, his girl.

Eventually Dolly Murphy came laughing out of the church, the sun all aglint on her, responding to the joke of some boy she had come out with. There was always some boy, as honey always had bees. Acknowledged as Riverton's closest look-alike to Marilyn Monroe, some even called Dolly "Marilyn Monroe's Daughter." Dolly was a pretty, vivacious, buxom blond, curvaceous beyond reason, and always attractively dressed, this time in a robin-egg blue Easter suit. Her face and body were somewhat thinner than Marilyn's, her eyebrows less pronounced, her use of makeup considerably more subdued, and her hairdo less glamorous, a pageboy with curled bangs on the side and a little curly bang on top, but it was pretty much the same look and the same smile, despite her best intentions to avoid comparisons. Generally, she abhorred Marilyn's reputation, hated to be reminded of the resemblance, and studiously avoided her Hollywood mannerisms, especially the voice. But she shared with Marilyn a love of fun, and so sometimes, in jest, when wickedness overtook her despite herself, she would mimic Marilyn's breathy voice, to Steve's delight. Rare moments, though. Dolly was as likely to be into rectitude as fun, he never knew.

From across the street, Dolly waved a white-gloved hand at Steve, her other hand on her blue Easter bonnet, and smiled prettily. Always flirting but always innocent, she amazingly was totally unaware of the fact that she had just copulated in church. She was, as always, without knowledge of sin. The cruder boys called her "Prick Teaser," but she simply honored her virginity without much thought to it. Sexy Dolly didn't think she was sexy, or tried not to think it. But her walk gave her away, as now she as usual looked sexy just crossing the street. She moved in on him with a lovely smile.