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In the previous chapter, we got to see more of the group date activities that Bobbie and Karel and Dan and Kristie participated in together. Even so, I ended up glossing over a lot. There were just too many things going on to be able to tell them all. (At some point, I have to say I've told enough of the story.)
But there were a few more important things that happened before we pick things
up in the second semester. I say, important, but some find some of the subjects the
four of them talked about on the road back to school unpleasant -- sexual matters, including rape. But they each are thinking about marriage, and not just in the
backs of their minds. And I personally think it's important for people
contemplating marriage to talk about these kinds of things, so I'm letting
you in on the conversations.
They drove in caravan on the road back. Dan and Karel each kept company with their own thoughts in their own cars, and Kristie and Bobbie kept each other company in Kristie's car, sometimes talking together and sometimes just thinking.
They had prearranged to find a rest stop and take a break every couple of chippu. Kristie and Bobbie were in the lead when they found a rest stop for the first break and pulled off the road.
They got out of their cars in the cold winter air, stretched, walked around, and exercised a bit, and then sat down at one of the picnic tables to talk.
Dan got a glass bottle of a size that would hold roughly three liters or a gallon out of his cooler, and they all drank still-hot home-made
lemon-apple cider from paper cups.
Kristie asked Dan, "Just out of curiosity, what did Sheliah mean when she told Bobbie and me that we might even be as cool as she?"
Dan and Karel's eyes met, and their mouths twitched as they stifled embarrassed laughter. Dan looked at the sky and said, "You didn't really have to ask that, did you?"
Kristie looked a little put-out at his response. Bobbie's expression became
sharp.
Karel's face slipped into a half-embarrassed smile, and he looked away and said, "Well, Dan and I think you two are pretty cool, too."
Dan's self-control broke at that, and he buried his face and his laughter in his hands. His shoulders shook and his voice was muffled. "You never cease to amaze me, Karel, both on and off the field."
Bobbie was trying to assume the inquisitor's expression, but she couldn't keep a straight face. "So it means something?" she suppressed a laugh that was half-chuckle, half-snicker.
Dan controlled his laughter and sighed and sat back, looking first towards Kristie and then Bobbie. "My little sister," he declared, pausing to look each in the eye, "has designs on both of you."
At this, all four of them burst into laughter. Karel explained further, "When I met Dan's family the first time, Sheliah was what? seven or so?"
Dan said, "Yeah."
"She wrapped her arms around my waist and looked up at me and said, 'I'm going to marry you when I grow up.'"
"No way!" Kristie exclaimed.
She and Bobbie were both amused.
"Karel was a gentleman. He said he liked her, too, but she'd better wait until she turned twenty, to be sure. Ever since then, it has been a bit of a running joke when Karel comes to visit."Kristie smiled. "I think we see."
Bobbie added with a nod, "I wouldn't blame him for robbing this cradle, she's really cute."
"Yeah. I would be sorely tempted. Fortunately for all concerned, she has since found guys her own age interesting. But she still says that I absolutely have to find someone as cool as she is or she'll stop me from marrying. And, of course, her big brother has to find someone as cool as she is, too."
Out there at that rest stop beside the highway in the desert, you could hear the sound of the breeze in the sage. Nothing else moved.
Bobbie put her hands out on the table. Kristie followed suit. Karel gathered their hands together in his, and Dan placed his hands on top.
Karel said, "Back in September, I asked my father in a letter for a father's blessing. I suspected I'd need help with a decision that I wasn't sure I was ready for. He gave me that blessing while I was home over Christmas." He paused for thought. "God told me to be patient a little while longer, and wonderful things were waiting."
After a few moments of silence, Kristie said, "Bobbie explained to me that I could ask my father for a father's blessing, too -- that is, even though he couldn't use priesthood authority to do it, he could still give me a blessing because he's my father, and it's a father's right. I asked him and he gave me a very nice blessing. In it, he told me that God would help us figure out if we should get together, and, if so, who should go with whom, in His own due time."
Bobbie looked from Kristie to Karel and then Dan, who spread his hands and said, "Of course I talked about us with Mom and Dad. And Dad gave me a father's blessing, too. Basically, he told me to be patient, too."
After another moment, Bobbie said, "My Dad was a little scared, at first, because he's not actively coming to Church, and he still complains about the leaders sometimes. But he gave me a father's blessing, too." She paused before continuing. "Why did God tell us all to be patient?"
Dan said the obvious -- "I guess we all need to study this out some more before we try to make commitments?"
Karel thought out loud: "But it's not going to mess things up to start talking a little about how we feel about each other, is it?"
Bobbie said, "I still need time, and I'd like to, uhm, I don't really know why, but I need to go on single dates with some other guys. Maybe it's to prove to myself what I think I already know, but I guess I need time."
Kristie and Bobbie's eyes met.
"Whatever way it works out," Kristie said, "that will be what's right. I trust you guys and I trust myself. We're friends. I trust us."
They listened to the sound of a truck engine in the distance. It grew louder as the truck approached, and then the pitch dropped suddenly from the Doppler effect as it passed, then rose again as the driver shifted down for a change in grade.
An eagle flew overhead, then suddenly dove for its prey on the other side of the highway. What that eagle was doing so close to the highway, I don't know. It probably had something to do with the prey being so close to the highway, which only begs other questions which are not part of the plot. We're getting distracted.
In an earlier period, I think the four of them might have ultimately asked their prophet to allow them to be sealed in a relationship that might be hard to explain to the modern mind in our world. I'm not talking about what gained popularity again in the nineteen-sixties in our world as group marriage.
It might be simple enough to talk about young children pricking a finger, then pressing the fingers together where the blood beads on the skin and proclaiming themselves blood siblings. There's perhaps a similar intent, but priesthood sealings invoke divine permission and approval, not just personal intent -- and they don't involve cuttings, nor the drawing and mingling of blood.)
Such sealings of friendship are no longer performed in our world, nor in theirs at the time of this story.
Either we don't need them in our modern culture, or they would be too
misunderstood. Maybe both.
Anyway, it's clear that these four were finding their hearts becoming knit together in friendship.
This kind of friendship is special, and it endures. And it gave them the courage to refrain from haphazard commitments or experimentation.
"Group hug!" Bobbie called out, jumping up. Kristie grinned in surprise and stood as well. Dan and Karel looked at each other in amusement and stood, looked at the table between them and the women and ran around it, and they had a nice, big group hug.
And then they got back in their cars and drove on, Dan in the lead this time, Kristie and Bobbie behind him, and Karel taking the rear.
Kristie and Bobbie were both lost in their own thoughts, uncharacteristically silent for a gohb or more.
"Bobbie?" Kristie broke the silence.
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask?"
Bobbie reached over and gave her a nudge. "Ask, or else."
"Are you holding back for me?"
"Holding back?"
"You like Karel, right?"
"Don't tell me you don't like them both, too."
"Yeah. Well, ..."
"I think we're all facing the same question. Sure, if we looked at age, you and Dan should get together, and Karel and I should get together, but age is not the most important thing."
"What's most important?"
"You're asking me?"
Silence reigned for another little while, then Kristie broke the silence again. "We'll always be friends, though, right?"
Bobbie scooted over from the passenger side on the front seat. (It was one of those bench seats that is now considered dangerous, but they didn't really think about things that way at that time on Xhilr, any more than we did back then. The bench seat was standard equipment for most cars.) She put an arm around Kristie's shoulder and gave her a hug. And a kiss on the cheek.
It was a good thing Kristie was driving, I guess, because, if Bobbie had been driving and scooted over to the passenger side to hug Kristie, that might have been dangerous. Scooting and driving at the same time takes skill. On the other hand, Bobbie, being trained in dance, might have pulled it off okay. But she wasn't driving, so we don't have to worry about that.
"Friends. Forever." she said. After a moment or two, she slid back a bit to give Kristie room to drive, patting Kristie's hand on the steering wheel and smiling.
Then she glanced back at Karel, driving at a safe distance behind. Karel smiled and waved.
"Karel's waving."
"So's Dan." Maybe he had been watching in his rear-view mirror. Both girls raised their hands and waved back.
(In our world, today, such a display of affection would be the cause of much mis-aimed fuss followed by unreasoning counter-fuss. In those days, in their world as much as ours, it was still considered perfectly normal for women to kiss each other as an expression of ordinary affection. Very few would have even considered that Bobbie might have been coming on to Kristie.
She wasn't, of course, and it seems a shame to me that I should have to even think about needing to point that out.
I suppose, even then, in other circumstances,
Kristie might have been concerned. But with Bobbie and Dan and Karel, it just
wasn't a question.)
The temporary silence between them was broken.
"Did we find out if we need dance costumes for the folk dance class?"
"Dan asked the teachers, and they said it's not a performance class so we don't need costumes. They actually said costumes would just be in the way in a beginners class. Other than clogs. We might want to buy clogs for the clogging dances." (Of course they have clogs. Doesn't every world?)
"I think this class will be fun. Have you ever danced in clogs?"
"Yep. It's hard work."
And they talked about many things until they stopped for a break again.
At this stop, Bobbie shivered in the cold air and announced, "I'm going for a run! Who's coming?"
This was answered by a chorus:
"Yeah!""Oh-kay!"
"Let's go!"
And then Karel said, "But we should lock the cars, just to be safe." Which they did.
After stretching and warming up, they took an easy, slow run about fifty paces ahead of the rest area and back.
Then they shed their coats and ran about two hundred paces or so ahead to a roadsign, keeping together, laughing as they came to a stop at the sign. Then they took an easy run back to the cars, continuing on about two hundred paces behind the rest area and turning around and running back again. After about two ghobu of running back and forth, they cooled down, talking while they walked and stretched.
Dan pulled a small practice football out of the stuff in the back of his car, and the four of them tossed it around for a gohb or so while they continued to talk.
Before they got too cooled down, they drank more warm lemon-apple cider from Dan's cooler, put their coats back on, and got back on the road.
In the car again, after a little more talk, Kristie said, "I kind of hesitate to ask about this, but back last fall, I told you about when Karel rescued me that time."
"Uh, huh."
"I didn't ask you back then, but I have the idea that you might have had some bad experiences with men, too."
"Uh, huh."
"Can I ask about it?"
"Well, I guess I can."
"It still bothers you?"
"Definitely. Until I met Dan and Karel, I was wondering if I'd ever meet a decent man I could trust -- besides my dad. But, now that I've been on campus a while, ... really, there do seem to be quite a few decent guys on campus."
"The church influence helps, doesn't it?"
"It does."
"What happened? It must have been a bit worse than that bunch of guys in their car whistling at me."
"Outside of campus, it seems like I get very few days without at least one or two guys making a pass at me, hitting on me emotionally, trying to get their hands on me."
"What kinds of things do you call hitting on you?"
"Well, you know how some guys use their eyes to check you out? And they make sure you notice that they're looking you over and then they get this look in their eyes like, 'You know you want me to take your clothes off.'? That kind of stuff."
"That sometimes happens to me. What do you do?"
"It took me a long time to get over just freezing, like a deer in the headlights."
"That's dangerous."
"Yeah .... You don't have that reaction."
"My mother taught me a bit of non-verbal communication. But I just had to figure out for myself how to say, 'Mind your own business!' with my eyes. And then mind my own business. Make it clear with my actions that, no matter how long they wait, nothing's happening. But you know how to do that, too, don't you?"
"Somewhat. Maybe I just attract the attention of really stubborn guys. But this campus is a relief. Not perfectly free of it, but definitely a relief."
Kristie paused, debating with herself about asking more.
Bobbie didn't make her ask. "I've had worse."
"Can I ask how bad?"
"I've been raped by four different men."
"Wow." Kristie bit her lip. "Sorry to ask. It hurts to talk about, I guess."
"Not so much as it used to. I've talked it out with my parents, and a little bit with my current bishop. After I decided I could trust him, of course."
"It's good to have a bishop you can trust that much. But he's not going to ask you to marry him. "
"Right. That's probably why only married men can be bishops in this church."
"Uhm," Kristie hesitated, "how about women?"
"Women I can trust? I've talked about it with a Relief Society quorum president that I knew I could trust, too." (On Xhilr, it was explicitly a quorum. Other than that, the name translates the same.)
"It's good to have women leaders we can trust that much, too, I guess."
"At least sometimes."
There was a bit of silence.
"Something tells me you weren't asking about women I could confide in."
"No."
Bobbie hesitated. "Women who attacked me?"
"Uhm, ..." Kristie didn't quite articulate her response.
"Thankfully, no. Uh, wait. Oh, Dear. Did I, ... ?"
"No. It's okay. I know the difference. It's actually because of how you kissed me that I felt like I might be able talk about it with you."
"Oh. That's a relief. Well, I'll listen if you want to talk about it."
"You'll be the first person I've ever told besides my bishop when I got baptized. He told me I didn't have to repent of something I didn't do, and that helped."
"That's so hard for some people to understand, that, even when the attacker doesn't say it, the victim can find it so easy to believe she did something wrong."
"So we're both damaged merchandise."
Bobbie laughed a wry laugh. "I said something like that to my mom, and she threatened to turn me over her knee and whip me. That got me to laugh, but then she turned serious and said that I absolutely must not think such things. If we let them tell us we're damaged merchandise, they've raped us emotionally, and it makes it easier for them to rape us again. That's why they try to get us to believe we are bad."
"I've never been able to tell either of my parents."
"Have you tried?"
"I back down every time."
"It does take a right time and place, and some parents should not be told, even though they are good parents. Not saying anything about your parents, of course, just that there's no rushing things."
The conversation continued, and we don't need to know any more details. The only thing we need to know is that they found a way to give each other emotional support.
At their next stop, while they were eating sandwiches they made from food packed in Dan's cooler, Dan said, "This is no fair. You two get to talk, and Karel and I have to talk to ourselves."
"It's just girl talk," Bobbie laughed.
Kristie quietly swallowed a mouthful of sandwich.
Karel said, "Penny for your thoughts."
Kristie and Bobbie's eyes met, and they both nodded after a moment. Kristie said, "We were talking about rape."
Dan and Karel looked at each other in surprise. Dan said, "Sorry we asked."
Kristie pursued the topic. "So, would you guys consider a woman who had been raped damaged merchandise?"
Dan looked at Kristie with wide eyes and said, "If I hear of anyone touching either of you, I'll ...," and then he stopped and looked down. Then he looked back to Kristie and started again. "I don't know. The Lord says vengeance is His, but, ..., oh, I don't know."
Karel said, "Vengeance doesn't solve anything. But the phrase, 'damaged merchandise' needs to be cleared up. People are not merchandise."
Both Bobbie and Kristie raised their eyebrows. Bobbie spoke. "My mother said something like that."
Karel went on. "And we're all damaged, ultimately. But the real damage is what the rapist does to himself. The victim suffers, but the attacker condemns himself to hell."
Bobbie's eyes narrowed, and Kristie's eyes opened wide.
Dan turned on his friend. "What the ..." he censored his words and unclenched his fist, "are you saying?"
"Hear me out. Rape and seduction hurt the person on the receiving end. I'm not saying anything about that. And the victim needs emotional support and medical and all sorts of other help."
He paused, and the wind chill factor dropped with a rise in the wind.
He continued. "The victim must never blame himself or herself, whether it was partly consensual or completely forced. That leads to sympathy for the attacker of the sort that allows the attacker to do it again."
The other three nodded guardedly.
"The attacker stands condemned before God and his or her own conscience. Novels and movies trivialize condemnation but it's not a small thing. If the attacker is allowed to do it again, he or she adds condemnation to condemnation, making it even harder to repent."
Dan was looking less confused. Bobbie's and Kristie's expressions were still unreadable.
Bobbie said, "Maybe I can understand what you're saying, but I still don't like it. It sounds like you're siding with the rapist."
"God wants to save the rapist, too. Salvation for the rapist includes getting him to find a better way to relate to people."
Kristie slowly nodded. "Okay, I'll accept that. It means that I don't have to hate my aunt, just see that she is never alone with me until I know that she has confessed and stopped. Maybe I can talk to my parents about it after all. Carefully."
Dan' jaw dropped, but after a moment he recovered himself and closed his mouth. "I'm sorry, Kristie." He struggled for words, reaching out to take her hand, and said, "It makes me think no less of you."
Kristie hesitated, then let him take her hand.
Bobbie's expression relaxed a bit. "I think I can agree with that. My former-boss did repent, and letting him repent helped me put it behind me. I guess I know what you're saying. Letting him repent was right. He never tried it again that I heard, and it seems to have saved his family. His wife and I still talk about it sometimes when I'm home, and I'm pretty sure from what she says that he's changed."
Karel mouthed a silent, "Oh." And then he reached out for Bobbie's hand. She took his and reached out to take Kristie's free hand, and the four of them were holding hands together across one of those rest stop picnic tables for the second time that day.
Bobbie smiled. "You guys are okay."
After a few bunmu they were able to clear the moisture in their eyes, and Bobbie said she was hungry, and they all finished their sandwiches.
"You're unusually quiet, Dan." Kristie looked at Dan inquisitively.
"Well, ..."
"Well, what?" Bobbie prompted.
"Maybe you guys wouldn't think I was so great."
"Get it off your chest."
"Before I met Karel, I wasn't much of a gentleman. Did my share of making out."
"He wasn't that bad. Near as I know, he didn't really impose himself on women like some of the team did. All of his girlfriends that I knew trusted him not to cross the lines they set." Karel turned to Dan. "And you never slept with anyone, that I know of."
"Yeah, that was a line I drew. But I sometimes got my hands where I shouldn't have. And you were the one who had to tell me that just because a girl didn't so no, she wasn't saying yes."
"And you listened to me."
"Well, especially after that time you told us to quit bothering that girl."
Karel creased his eyebrows, as if trying to remember something.
"What happened?" Kristie tilted her head.
"I was out driving with some of the team, letting off steam and stuff, and we saw a really cute girl walking towards campus."
Kristie caught her breath and Bobbie turned to focus on Dan.
"One of the guys said he wanted to try to get a date, so I drove up behind her. They started wolf-whistling and stuff, but I could see it was making her really uncomfortable. Karel happened to be walking the same road, and he told us to get lost, so I took the opportunity and drove away. Made the guys a little mad, but I told them to shut up. I knew I didn't like making women uncomfortable like that."
"Oh, yeah. Next day at practice, you told the coaches about it, and they spent the whole practice time lecturing the team about how badly a lot of them were behaving. Most of the guys straightened up a bit, but some of the guys kept at it until the coaches threatened to suspend them from the team. What are you two laughing about?"
Bobbie stopped laughing and asked, "You don't remember what this woman you rescued looked like, do you, Karel?"
"She was blonde, petite, ..." He stared into the distance beyond Kristie, doubt and recognition fighting in his expression.
Dan looked up. "I was too embarrassed to get a good look at her, but I think she looked a lot like you, Kristie."
"I've heard this story from a different point of view, haven't I, Kristie?"
"You have, indeed."
And they both burst out laughing for real.
Karel's expression resolved to chagrin. "My goodness! That was you, Kristie?" He looked over at Dan, who was shaking his head in disbelief.
"Behold your knights in rusty armor, Kristie." Bobbie grinned.
"Not that rusty, really," she smiled.
"True. But it's fun to hear their side of it, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. And now I have two knights." Kristie grinned broadly.
Bobbie nodded, smiling "Me, too."
Dan looked happy. "Well, if you guys are forgiving me, I'm doubly glad I got my act straightened out."
Kristie turned to Karel. "So why didn't you ask my name and phone number like most guys would have?"
He scratched the back of his neck. "I didn't want to be rude, or take advantage of the
situation ...." His voice trailed off.
Dan chuckled. "Typical Karel."
"Well, I was both pleased and disappointed. You should know you're the reason I took an interest in football."
"I see. Well, I'm glad we got to meet again." He cleared his throat. "I mean, that we got to become friends."
"Karel, why are you such a gallant?" Bobbie's face had a serious look.
Karel looked at the ground. "I have sisters."
"Lots of guys have sisters."
Karel turned to look up the highway, searching for birds in the sky or rabbits by the road, but not finding any.
Dan leaned on an elbow. "I'm interested in this question, too, Karel. Remember Roxanne?"
"Roxanne ... Snow?"
"Kept trying to get your attention, but you only took her dancing twice. And she couldn't get you to kiss her goodnight. I offered to take your place, but she said she wanted someone who understood Kwaxh." (Kwaxh was one of their important philosophers, perhaps comparable to Kant in our world.)
Bobbie and Kristie both stifled laughs.
"That was why you asked me what books to study philosophy from."
"Yeah."
Dan chuckled, Bobbie and Kristie joining him.
"I kind of liked her, but I didn't dare get serious with anyone at the time."
The chuckling stopped.
After a short silence, Bobbie asked, "Well, okay, but can we ask why?"
"She seemed to want me to be serious, and I didn't want to face the conundrum of asking anyone to marry me outside the temple, and I didn't think I could promise I could stay worthy long enough to get ready to go."
Kristie was the one to ask, "And why was that? We're all telling secrets today, what secrets are you hiding?"
Karel covered his eyes, pressing his temples with his thumbs, leaning his elbows on the table. "Some say it's not such a big deal. It was a big deal to me. Still is."
"Masturbation?" Dan asked. "I remember we talked about that a few times."
"Yeah."
Bobbie's expression became sharp again.
"You never struck me as someone who would be into pornography, Karel." Kristie raised her eyebrows, quizzically.
"No. Well, when I was six or seven, sometimes I'd sneak the underwear ads out of the newspaper and go hide somewhere to look at them. But a few months after I was baptized, I realized that getting myself excited with those ads was wasn't really any better than looking at dirty magazines."
Bobbie's expression remained sharp, but she didn't say anything.
Dan said, "I think you were right about the underwear ads, but don't we all go through that? And we talked about you getting your fantasies under control, and that was a good thing. But I always thought you were being too hard on yourself. Wet dreams don't always happen naturally just because the hormones have gotten clogged up."
"Nocturnal emissions," Karel corrected.
Kristie turned a little pink around her ears. She and Bobbie both nodded absently.
Bobbie added, "Practicing self-control is one thing, but we don't want anyone to suddenly explode."
"I guess that was where I was struggling at the time, trying to figure out what my limits were, so I wouldn't lose control and hurt someone."
"Maybe you were just trying too hard." Bobbie said as she stood up. "But that's between you and the Lord. Let's get back on the road."
Nobody disagreed. I'm not sure why nobody disagreed, but nobody did. So they got back in their cars and continued the next leg of their trip. Karel took the lead, Dan took the tail, and Bobbie spelled Kristie so she could get a nap.
They arrived at Kristie and Bobbie's apartment after nine and had another group hug before they said good night.
As Dan and Karel walked back to their cars, Dan said, "Forgive the attacker?"
"Maybe I can tell you more sometime, but a couple of close friends of mine were in an abusive relationship together in high school, and they repented and are happily married now. He had to repent of the things he did to her, of course, but she also had to repent of some things she did to him, and they both had to repent of believing bad things about themselves. And they had a bit of a wait, both of them relearning their relationship, before they could get married, but they are good people."
"But that's different from rape."
"I can't tell you more, but I can tell you they said it was mutual rape."
"I've gotta think about this. You're still doing things I don't understand. And I still think you're too hard on yourself." Dan grinned and Karel grinned back, and they hugged each other and said good night.
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You can find the original first draft of the chapter this chapter was
extracted from, and various approaches I have tried with it here:
https://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/06/economics-101-novel-ch05-9-heading-back.html.
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