Tags:
Religión,
Fiction,
General,
Mystery & Detective,
Women Sleuths,
Crime,
Mystery Fiction,
Christianity,
Hotelkeepers,
Bank Robberies,
Mennonite,
Mennonites,
Pennsylvania Dutch Country (Pa.),
Yoder; Magdalena (Fictitious character)
once told me that premarital sex was wrong because it might lead to dancing."
"I did not! I said that having sex while standing up could lead to dancing."
There followed a minute of blessed silence--well, relatively speaking. Agnes is a heavy breather under the best of circumstances, and we'd had to make a mad dash across a patch of well-lit yard to get to our current position. But, like I said, it was only a minute.
"Do you mean," she said "that it is possible to have sex while standing up? I thought that was only a myth."
"A myth ? Where does one hear such myths?"
"Well, if you must know, at my VALID meetings."
Agnes belongs to a support group of like-minded spinsters who call themselves the Virgin Awesome Ladies of Impeccable Demeanor. However, since I am her very best friend in the entire world, I have been known to tease her, and may have even hinted that the acronym stood for Vapid Avaricious Lounge-lizards of Intense Desire.
I sighed. "Yes--theoretically it is possible to have sex in a standing position, not that I'm speaking from personal experience, you understand. But trust me, don't believe those stories about honeymooners swinging from chandeliers. A moving target is indeed hard to hit, and when the bough breaks--well, in this case, the chandelier chain--down will come Magda--I mean baby, crystals and all."
"You didn't!"
It was time to change subjects. "Do you want to hear about my dancing or not?"
"Yeah, sure."
I knew she didn't believe me, but it was true. And although it may seem very strange to some people that I should take the time to share such a shocking, and personal, experience whilst sniffing around in another Yoder's bush, this was one sin I had yet to come to grips with, and I needed to get it off my bony chest.
"Remember Alice Gillespie's sweet sixteen party?"
"Of course, I do. Even we liberal Mennonites didn't have those back then, but Alice was a Methodist; they got to do everything."
"Did you go?"
"You bet. The Gillespies rented the Holderman barn and fixed it up to look like the high school gym. Then they brought in this rock band from Pittsburgh, and--Oh, wait a minute. You being an Old Order Mennonite--you didn't go, did you?"
I let the Devil take over and gave her a wicked grin as I recalled my shameful behavior that night. "That's what you think. I told my parents I was going to an all- night Bible study over in Summerville with Judy Bontrager, except that I didn't. You see, Judy had just gotten her license. Anyway, we went to the party as well, only we hung out by the henhouse with the rest of the kids who wanted to come, but who weren't supposed to be there."
"You didn't!" I heard admiration in Agnes's voice like I'd never heard before.
"There must have been fifteen or twenty of us by the henhouse--hiding in the shadows, like we are here. But we could still hear the music. Nice and loud too, because we were downwind from the barn. At any rate, at first we just stood around and mostly talked about how cool it was that we had all sneaked away from our parents, but then Marlene Jacobs began moving to the beat, and the next thing you knew we were all twisting the night away."
"You weren't!"
"But I was," I whispered. "I even shimmied and shook. My nimble young body did gyre and gimble in the wabe ."
"No way!"
"Way," I said, even now electrified by thought of all that pulsating energy flowing through and not going to waste. "And the momwraths outgabe," I added.
"Uh--I think now you've lost me."
"You may not be the only one. But do you at least believe me?"
"Yes, and I hate you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Magdalena, you have everything. You have a handsome husband, you have a child, you know what it's like to swing from a chandelier, and now I find out that you've even danced. I don't know why you even bother to be friends with me. Face it: we have nothing in common."
"Don't be silly, dear, of course we do; we're both fond of moi ."
"I can't believe you said that."
"I was
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