The church of St. Benedict’s is the largest church I’ve ever stepped foot in. The pillars tower above my head as I enter through the large wooden doors. The stained-glass window panes illuminate the morning light and the tears of the patron saints. No matter how many times I walk down the aisles, past the numerous pews, behind the family that has so graciously taken me in, I always so do with my eyes glued to my feet. The feeling of not truly belonging in these hallowed halls fills me up every Sunday.
This Sunday is no different, except that the church has been decorated for Christmas. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but each year this seems to happen earlier. Wreaths hang by bows on the beautifully decorated windows, while garlands line the rectory and pews. What looks like hundreds of carnations fill the stairs leading to the pulpit, and a large Christmas tree full of candles glistens in the furthest corner, large and towering enough that even those seated in the back rows can admire it.
Although I always feel out of place here, I can’t help but love the way it looks at Christmas. The church never fails to go all out in its decorations, and a festive spirit lingers in the air despite the solemnness of the religion practiced within these walls. Lovely Christmas hymns are being played on the large organ as congregants drift in.
I sit down beside my foster father, Andrew, with my foster mother, Colleen on his other side. Soon afterwards the pastor takes his place behind the pulpit, looking out at the congregation.
“My brothers and sisters,” he begins. “Welcome. As we enter into the Christmas season, let us be ever mindful of the spirit of family and love that bind us together.”
Again, I find my gaze aiming towards the floor, feeling a bit uncomfortable at the mention of “family.” Andrew, my foster father, gently taps my shoulder and gestures for me to look back up at the pastor, who is supposed command our respectful attention at all times while we were in the Lord’s house.
Obediently, I stare up towards the podium and meet the pastor’s gaze. He smiles and nods his head at me, beckoning me towards his every word. I look over at my foster parents, their eyes straight ahead and their backs straight. I take a deep breath and adopt the same posture they have, waiting for the pastor’s words to envelope me as I know they are supposed to do while I’m here. But my thoughts wander elsewhere.
My mother would never have been caught dead in a church. I can only assume, that even in death, she would have gone elsewhere if she had any choice in the matter—but she didn’t, because she had a church funeral provided by a local charity. Poor people like the kind I come from don’t get much say in these matters.
Her priorities weren’t the church, weren’t God, or even me. They were only hyper-focused on one thing. Her next score. All she thought about was adding track after track to her once beautiful arms, the veins no longer able to help her get that feeling of relief she so desperately sought after. The night that Social Services came for me, I found her lying in a pool of her own vomit, mere moments away from her final pain-relieving overdose. It wasn’t her first one, but it ended up being her last.
At first, I was grief-stricken but felt a strange and unexpected sense of relief. I was placed with my first foster family and naively believed that things would be different. That things would suddenly start looking up. But I had never been so wrong.
My first foster father was a drunk and every evening he would come home and the screaming would start. Plates would smash and bruises would form on the arms and faces of every foster child in that house, including my own—and there were many of us. Every night I would sit in my bedroom, sheets pulled tightly up to my ears as I prayed to be saved from this house that was even worse than the one I had lived in with my mother. At least there, the worst thing that happened to me was the hunger of another day without food, or the lonely feeling of neglect. At least there, I wasn’t abused and beaten.
After several weeks of fearing for my safely, I finally got up the courage and left. For, I knew, one of these days, that no matter how drunk and off balance my first foster father would become, he’d still be able to overpower me with his fists. It wasn’t something I wanted to put up with any longer.
I was found again by social services and chided for running away, before being placed with another family that wasn’t much better. Time and time I ran away again, escaping one cruel fate to be placed in the same type of environment all over again. It was if my life was cursed and I could never escape.
I was only 16 when I found myself on the streets, wandering and begging for food and shelter. Social services had stopped caring what happened to me, since I was viewed as a trouble making runaway and they had more dire situations to attend to, with younger children who might still be able to find a permanent home.
One night, I found myself at a local church and was introduced to Pastor John. He told me in very clear terms that I deserved better than the life I had been given. At that time, I didn’t truly believe him. I was a young girl who had nothing and no one to lean on. It made me a hardened shell of the person I had dreamed of becoming when I was a child, before my mother started loving her heroine and her drug dealer more than she loved me. And even though I didn’t find myself a believer in God, the church still took me in. They helped me where I was unable to help myself. And three years later, I’m still here.
Andrew and Colleen are the new foster parents I was placed with once I arrived here, as they were members of the church who happened to have just gone through foster parent training with the state, since they were unable to have children of their own and were looking to adopt. They didn’t have a sixteen year old child in mind, I don’t think. More like a cute little infant. But they took me in any way.
They are the kindest people I have ever met in my short life. In the past few years, I have spent feeling more love than I could have ever imagined. They graciously pay my rent and my bills and give me everything I could have asked for. And then some. All they ask in return is that I come to church and follow their religion and do what they ask.
Soon, they will no longer have to help me with these things. I applied for a new job as an assistant at a law firm and to my surprise, since I have no applicable experience and only managed to barely graduate from high school thanks to Colleen home schooling me, I was offered the position. My new job will give them back everything they’ve given me financially. And then perhaps I can think about starting a life on my own.
Andrew and Colleen weren’t happy about my new job prospect. I suppose that didn’t really surprise me, since they prefer to shelter me. Still, I hope they soon get used to idea of it, since I can’t exactly live with them forever, even if I wanted to—which, I don’t. I appreciate all they’ve done for me but I’m anxious to make my way into the world as a responsible adult rather than as a delinquent teenage repeat runaway.
There’s still so much I need to experience about life. I’ve never even had a boyfriend. I’ve never been kissed, let alone fucked.
Suddenly, I feel my panties dampen at the same time that I can literally feel my cheeks redden with heat. I can’t believe I just thought the word “fuck” in church. I’m going straight to hell—if there is one. But still, it’s only natural to think of such things that I haven’t had time to experience due to trying to just survive, before being taken in by kind strangers who require my utmost obedience and devotion to their religion that forbids sex before marriage.
I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have a man’s hands on my body. My breasts. My tingling, aching pussy.
As if sensing I’m even thinking of impure things I’m not supposed to, Andrew taps my hand and nods his head towards Pastor John again. I smile at him, hoping he doesn’t notice that I was wiggling in my seat a little. He curves his eyebrows at me, as if suspicious.
But when I look back at Pastor John, I realize he’s about to conclude the prayer that signifies the end of his sermon. Realizing that we were supposed to be praying, Andrew finally looks away from me, bowing his head and closing his eyes.
Whew. Saved by the end of the church service. I have no idea what I was thinking, sitting here fantasizing about forbidden things, in the middle of the Sunday sermon. I suppose with the prospects of starting a new job, I’ve been filled with a little bit of curiosity and naughtiness. And perhaps it’s the Christmas season, bringing out the adventurous side of me.
“…And by the grace of God, may we find our strength to avoid temptation,” Pastor John says, concluding his prayer. I look up at him and hope beyond hope that in my case his prayer ends up turning into reality.