by M. H. Strom
We arrived at a natural amphitheater. A stage was set up at the bottom of the bowl-shaped valley, and quite a few people were already there finding a place to sit on the grass slope.
I saw Joanna and her mom near the stage and made my way towards them. Joanna saw me and gave me an exaggerated grin to show how nervous and excited she was.
“It’s starting soon. We’re third up.” She was so antsy she couldn’t stay still.
The amphitheater was filling fast and there was a real buzz around the place, especially near the stage area.
I was sweating. I had so much to remember—all those chord changes. They announced the beginning of the show and the first contestant, a drummer doing a solo, went up to perform. He was pretty good.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this. I’m so nervous. Are you nervous? I’m really nervous.” She was talking fast.
“Calm down, just breathe.” I laughed. “It’s not a big deal if we make a few mistakes, right?”
“What if I freeze up there and can’t sing?”
“You won’t. Just look at me, I’ll keep you from freezing.”
“How’ll you do that?”
“I’ll make funny faces or something.”
She laughed. “Oh, my mouth feels so dry.”
“I’ll get you some water.”
“No, Zach, we’re up next.”
Sure enough they were announcing: “Up next, Joanna and accompanist.”
“Accompanist?” I looked at Joanna. She just stood there not moving. I grabbed her arm and led her up the stairs onto the stage.
We looked out at the audience and I couldn’t even remember what chord I was supposed to start on. Joanna started playing, so I hurried to play a chord. She looked over at me and smiled, then she began to sing.
The whole world seemed to fade away as I watched this beautiful young girl sing from her heart with simple, angelic purity. I don’t even remember playing I was so mesmerized.
Joanna performed her song and the next thing I knew we were walking off the stage to a cheering audience.
I was dazed and elated. As soon as we were down the stairs Joanna jumped on me giving me a huge hug—guitar and all.
“That was so amazing! I can’t even describe it. I can’t believe we did it!”
I laughed. “You were amazing, it was the best I’ve ever heard you.”
“I know! I made a few mistakes on the guitar though. You didn’t notice?”
I shook my head. “It sounded perfect to me.”
She laughed. “I can’t watch the rest of this. Let’s go somewhere.”
“But you’ll probably win.”
“I don’t wanna find out. Come on.” She grabbed my hand.
We left our guitars beneath the stage with a pile of other stuff, and started down a path towards the beach. It was already getting dark and hard to see where we were going, but an almost full moon helped light our way.
“Thank you so much, Zach.”
“For what?”
“For everything! For making me do it. I couldn’t even go up those stairs without you. You’re so amazing. I can’t believe you got up there and played in front of all those people just for me, and you hardly know how to play the guitar. You’re so brave.”
I started laughing. “I don’t think I changed chords the whole time I was up there.”
“What?” She started laughing too, and then we both couldn’t stop.
“I was playing . . . the same chord . . . the whole time.” I gasped out the words as we laughed uncontrollably. I had tears in my eyes.
“You’re so bad. Oh my goodness.”
“I hope I didn’t cost you the contest.”
“I don’t care about that. It was getting up there and doing it that was so amazing. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my whole life. Everything’s been so exciting since I met you.”
“Yeah, my life’s definitely more exciting since I met you, too. I never know what’s going to happen next.”
“This.” She came up close and pressed her lips to mine. I pulled her into my arms and we kissed passionately, my hands caressing down her back. She took my hand from behind her and placed it on her breast, and I gently squeezed its ample softness through the thin fabric of her dress.
Somehow I found enough self-control to pry my lips from hers.
“We better stop, we’re getting too passionate.”
“I know,” she said breathlessly. “I’m sorry, I’m being stupid again.”
“It’s okay, I like it when you’re stupid.”
She laughed. “I like it too, ‘cause you stop us before we go too far.”
“I wish I didn’t—”
She stopped my words with her mouth and we kissed again.
Joanna pulled away this time. “I wanna give you something special for your reward, and I just thought of something we can do. Come on.”
She grabbed my hand and started leading me down the path again.
“What are we doing?”
“You’ll see.” She giggled.
I resisted, pulling her to a stop. “What is it?”
She smiled. “We’re going swimming.”
I laughed. I knew what that meant.
We ran down to the now deserted beach.
Joanna looked at me. “Shall we?”
“No, not here. Let’s go ‘round the point, it’s more private there.”
We walked around the rocky headland to the secluded cove on the other side where a small, sandy beach lay bare in the moonlight.
“Wow, I didn’t even know this place existed. It’s very romantic.”
We stood there for a moment looking at each other before we started taking off our clothes. She finished first and I could see all of her, her bare skin luminescent in the moonlight. She suppressed a giggle as I kicked off my underpants into the pile and we stood there naked. I took her hand in mine and we ran together into the sea.
Joanna squealed as the water surged up around us, but it wasn’t cold—it felt invigorating and liberating. I lost hold of her hand in the waves and we immediately grabbed for each other, pulling our bodies close, our skin touching as the waves broke around us. My hands moved over her body, but before I could explore too much she let go and swam away, squealing and giggling as I gave chase.
She let me catch her in the shallows and stood up, her skin glistening in the moonlight. She was so beautiful. I stood up next to her, so close we were almost touching, the waves crashing all around us. She reached out her hand and gently stroked her fingertips down my chest and stomach tracing the contours of my muscles. I reached for her too, my hands cupping her perfectly formed breasts. They were so soft, their smooth rounded flesh contrasting with her pronounced nipples.
She brought her lips to mine and we kissed in the moonlight, her cool skin pressing against me. My hands moved lower, feeling the firm smoothness of her body until my fingertips reached the fringe of her pubic hair.
She stopped my hand with hers. “Zach . . . we should go. My parents will be wondering where we are.” She kept hold of my hand as we waded back to shore and found our clothes on the beach.
“How are we gonna get dry? I can’t put my dress on, it’ll soak right through.”
“Yeah, we didn’t think of that. We could build a fire and sit around it ’til we dry off?”
“That’ll take forever.”
“It’d be romantic though.” I grinned.
“This is serious. We’ll be all wet and my parents will figure out what we’ve been doing.”
“It’s okay, just use my shirt to dry off, we’ll go back to the shack and dry off properly.”
“We’ll be gone too long.”
“Let’s just worry about one thing at a time.”
“Okay.” She seemed to relax like she was trusting me to get us through this. She started drying herself with my shirt while I pulled my pants on over wet, clingy legs.
When she’d finished, she handed it to me and I p
ut on my now damp shirt. She put on her dress and we headed back around the point carrying our shoes and underwear. I could hear distant music coming from the campground.
“If we hurry we might still make it back before it finishes.”
We ran together along the beach, laughing and giggling at the crazy situation we were in. When we made it to the shack, I got some towels from the bathroom and she took off her dress to dry herself.
I watched her for a moment. “I’ll go get my mom’s hairdryer.”
“Okay, thanks.” She smiled at me.
I came back with the hairdryer and she dried her hair and some damp spots on her dress. I peeled off my clothes and dried myself too, then changed into a similar shirt and pants to what I’d been wearing.
“No one’s going to guess we’ve been swimming.”
“Yeah, but they’re gonna ask us where we’ve been.” She pushed open the door and we headed back to the campground.
“So what should we say?”
“I don’t know. I hate lying to my parents.”
“Just say we went for a walk after our performance.”
“Yeah, we walked down to the beach and back. That wouldn’t be lying.”
The campground was deserted. I could hear music in the distance and we made our way towards it. The music stopped and we picked up our pace. We soon joined the crowd around the edge of the amphitheater. Joanna started pressing her way through, and I followed her.
A man on stage spoke into a microphone, “And now, for the moment you’ve been waiting for . . . the winner of this year’s talent contest is . . .Joanna and accompanist.”
We both froze and looked at each other. She looked completely stunned.
“You won!”
She just stood there, so I started pushing her towards the stage.
“There she is.” The man on stage pointed to us and the crowd parted. Joanna walked up the stairs still looking completely dazed.
“Smile!” I called out to her.
She smiled as the man handed her a trophy and everyone clapped. I caught sight of her parents, her father was capturing the moment with a video camera, and her mom had tears rolling down her cheeks. I couldn’t help being caught up in the emotion of it all, I had a big lump in my throat as I smiled up at my beautiful Joanna.
She graciously took her trophy and retreated back down the stairs. The crowd was still clapping as she came to me smiling and holding her trophy up for me to see.
Her mom and dad came to us and Joanna hugged them both. We stayed there in a huddle as the crowd around us began to dissipate. Her parents were bubbling with joy. They didn’t even ask us where we’d been.
We collected our guitars from under the stage and started walking back up the hill. A few people called out their congratulations and Joanna thanked each of them.
“Wasn’t this a great night!” Her father enthused. “I got it all on video. You were so good. You deserved to win.”
“It was wonderful.” Her mother still had tears in her eyes. “I knew you’d win. You were good too, Zach.”
I grinned and looked at Joanna who gave me a happy, relieved smile.
When we reached their campsite I said my goodnights and walked home with my guitar, whistling the tune to Joanna’s song.
I was proud of Joanna. The more I knew her the more there was to love about her. I guess that’s what love is like, you fall in love with someone you hardly know, then you get to know them and your love deepens or you begin to fall out of love. I never knew love happened so fast, I thought you had to know everything about a person first to truly love them, but love doesn’t wait for that. Love is blind.
Four
I awoke to a knock at the door and looked at the clock—8:22am. I eased out of bed, rubbing my eyes as I went and opened the door. All annoyance evaporated at the sight of Joanna standing there.
“Good morning.” Her smile was like a sunrise.
“Hi!” I opened the door wider for her to come in, and she looked me over admiringly—I was wearing only boxer shorts. I closed the door behind her and she wrapped me in her arms, smiling up at me so lovingly.
“Am I still dreaming?” I laughed. “What are you doing here?”
She laughed too. “My dad sent me to ask if you’d like to come to church with us this morning.”
“Oh. . .” My smile froze. “Which church?” Not my parents’ church.
“I don’t know, we haven’t decided yet.”
“I have to take a shower first. Can you wait for me?”
“Sure.” She smiled up at me and I kissed her petal-soft lips. She returned my kiss with passion, her hands caressing my body. I was growing increasingly aware my boxer shorts weren’t hiding the way she was making me feel.
“You better go take your shower.” She giggled.
“Yeah.” I sighed.
I went into the bathroom and turned on the water. She was still watching me through the open doorway. When it was hot enough I slipped off my shorts and stepped into its warm stream.
After a quick shower, I wrapped a towel around my waist, and she openly admired me as I came back into the room. It felt so sexy being admired like that.
I stood there, looking at her looking at me. “Hmm, maybe I should go,” I said in a falsetto voice. I made to walk past her, then suddenly veered and kissed her on the lips.
She laughed and ripped my towel away. I gasped and she fell into a fit of giggles.
After I’d got changed, we walked out into the warm sunshine. It was another beautiful day with Joanna, and I felt happy. We held hands and walked slowly.
When we got to the campsite her parents were already waiting for us in their car.
“There you are. We were just about to come and look for you.” Her dad leaned out the car window. “Come on, we’re gonna be late.”
Her mom smiled at me as we climbed in the back seat. “Nice to see you again this morning, Zach.”
We drove into town and turned into the parking lot of a large church. It wasn’t my parents’ church but it still made me nervous.
It was pretty grand inside, with plush carpeting and a giant video screen above the stage displaying a welcome message. We sat near the back. I looked around and I thought I recognized some of the people there. The meeting started with singing. I didn’t know any of the songs but I liked listening to Joanna sing them.
The pastor then got up and started speaking about the blessings of God. He mostly talked about financial blessing and stressed that giving to the church would bring God’s blessing on their finances so they could continue to be a blessing to others. I couldn’t help but compare his message to what I’d read the other night. This isn’t what Jesus taught. He said don’t seek after the things of this world, and you can’t love both God and money. What’s wrong with these Christians? Don’t they read their Bibles? You could see what they spent their money on, and it wasn’t the poor and needy. I felt disgusted by it all.
After the service Joanna’s father drove us home. “I’m sorry about that, that wasn’t the right church to go to.”
“Yeah, I knew that guy wasn’t speaking the truth.”
“They think it’s true, Zach. Everyone likes the idea of God blessing them with nice things and a happy, comfortable life in this world. But why would God want to bless our greed and worldly consumerism? He doesn’t want to bless us when all we’d do is use it selfishly on our own pleasure and comfort. He doesn’t want spoiled children, he wants children of good character. Jesus didn’t die to give us luxury in this world. He gives us life so we can live for him and go to the poor and the sick and the lost and bless them with his love and the good news of the gospel.”
He shook his head. “It’s such a shallow form of Christianity. They live for themselves, they don’t know anything of denying themselves and taking up the cross and following Jesus, they just fit their Christianity around their worldly lifestyle. They see the blessings God has for them but they don’t see the blessing God
wants them to be to this world, because that requires sacrifice. That’s what true worship is, Zach, laying down your life and everything this world offers, and living for God. Our reward is eternal, not temporary. We’re not supposed to run after the things of this world but seek after the things of God and trust him to take care of our needs.”
I was surprised by the passionate way he spoke. He obviously cared deeply about it.
“You should tell him about revival, Dad.”
He glanced at us in the rearview mirror. “Revival—that’s what the church desperately needs.”
“What is it?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.
“It’s an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when God’s holy presence comes upon a place so powerfully all the people become very aware of their sins and repent and they’re purified and made holy and righteous and full of love for one another. It’s an exciting time. Miracles happen and many people are saved. The last time it happened here in a big way was a hundred years ago, but I believe we’re going to see another revival soon, and the church as we know it will be completely changed. That’s what I’m praying for.”
He pulled into their campsite and parked.
“Can me and Zach go to the beach?” Joanna asked.
Her parents looked at each other and her father smiled. “I think you’ve earned some time alone together. But stay where people can see you, no going off alone in private anywhere.”
Joanna’s father smiled as we both agreed. I could tell he liked me. I wondered just how far he was willing to bend the rules for us. While Joanna went to get changed in her tent I decided to try my luck and find out.
“Uh, actually I wanted to ask you something.”
“What’s that, Zach?” He gave me his full attention which made me nervous.
“Do you think I could take Joanna out to a movie sometime . . . like, maybe tonight?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You mean on a date?” He glanced at his wife who was obviously listening in. “Zach, she’s not allowed to date—”
“Yeah, I know. I just thought, since you’re loosening the rules a little, you might let us go on one date.”
He gave a quick laugh. “I admire your boldness, Zach, and I’d like to say yes, but I’m not about to abandon our rules. They’re there for a reason.”