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“You’re not fucking me,” Lauren said. She w<strong>as</strong> on the pill, but she’d always said that she liked being so close<br />
without a condom. On top, I looked into Lauren’s eyes, making it l<strong>as</strong>t. After, she told me that I w<strong>as</strong> the only guy<br />
she h<strong>as</strong> ever let come inside her.<br />
So, when Lauren said that we shouldn’t go much further, I stopped. I put my shirt back on. I hadn’t come over to<br />
fuck her.<br />
And later when I w<strong>as</strong> idling in front of Lauren’s, a half-hour drive from my parents’ house, and no matter what I<br />
did my car’s lights wouldn’t work, all I could think about w<strong>as</strong> my father’s letter:<br />
Now that you’ve been with Lauren awhile, I wonder whether you’ve thought about your future with her, how your<br />
relationship with her is unfolding. And have you given thought to the various <strong>as</strong>pects of intimacy that you and<br />
Lauren are cultivating—social, emotional, spiritual, physical? And whether you have established any boundaries to<br />
physical intimacy?<br />
My father is the copy coordinator at Campus Crusade for Christ’s corporate magazine Worldwide Challenge<br />
(they always use the trademark symbol). My parents have been missionaries for longer than the 30 years<br />
they’ve been married. From them, I grew up with the commandment to save sex for marriage. But my parents<br />
don’t know that their youngest son, who Mom introduces <strong>as</strong> her “baby,” h<strong>as</strong> a pack of thintensity<br />
ultr<strong>as</strong>mooth lubricant Trojans in the pair of motorcycle gloves that are next to his Swiss Army Knife and<br />
Good News Bible in the drawer of his bedside table.<br />
Bottomline: My father’s letter w<strong>as</strong> way too late.<br />
I turned off my car’s engine and I thought of all the possibilities: I couldn’t drive home in the dark on the<br />
interstate; I wouldn’t <strong>as</strong>k Lauren to drive me home; and I w<strong>as</strong>n’t going to call my parents to pick me up. It w<strong>as</strong><br />
respectively illegal, unfair, or ridiculous. I realized I’d already made up my mind, because the car’s engine w<strong>as</strong><br />
already cooled down.<br />
I walked back to Lauren’s front door. Her dad w<strong>as</strong> gone on a hunting trip that weekend with her brother.<br />
Lauren w<strong>as</strong> alone and I w<strong>as</strong> about to <strong>as</strong>k to stay over. I couldn’t think of anything else.<br />
So, I knocked, Lauren answered, and I immediately started to explain that, “It’s probably a fuse or the switch,”<br />
but before I could finish Lauren said, “Stay.”<br />
I knew I had to call home. My parents have never imposed a curfew, but I’d never not come home before, even if<br />
that’s meant unlocking the front door <strong>as</strong> quietly <strong>as</strong> I could at 3am to my father sitting in the front room reading<br />
some proofs and him saying, “I hope you had a good time. I’m glad you’re back, safe.”<br />
My cell phone had died, too, so I had to use Lauren’s to call home. And <strong>as</strong> my parents’ phone rang, I prayed to<br />
God: Hey man, I haven’t <strong>as</strong>ked you for too much recently and I know we don’t talk a lot, but you know I’m listening<br />
and if you could, <strong>this</strong> time, would you hear me out? I realize that <strong>this</strong> is an emergency prayer that I could’ve used<br />
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