Author's Note: This is a side-story, adjacent to the forthcoming (2024) longer-format series "Faith". All characters are over 18. Any resemblance to persons living or otherwise is purely coincidental. Some (PG) art accompanying this story can be found in the bulletin board feedback thread here:
https://forum.literotica.com/threads/annette-a-story-about-a-conservative-girl-challenged-by-her-desires-with-art.1599708/
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"Sex is wildly over-emphasized," Annette explained. "To be honest, an orgasm is just like a sneeze."
"You haven't had an orgasm, I take it," Julia said.
"I'm saving myself for marriage, of course. But I am not uneducated. I understand it is pleasurable; it is a blessing from God, so of course it is. All I am saying is that it is over-emphasized, over-rated. People obsess over it. Just look at this campus."
Julia shrugged. "At the moment,
you're
the one emphasizing it."
"I don't think I started this conversation," Annette said with smug finality.
"We were just playing cards when you came up to talk about the bible. Which nobody wanted, by the way."
"But you are a literature major, Julia. The Bible is the greatest work of literature in human history."
"Don't start again!"
Groans went around the lounge table.
Annette sighed.
She stayed a while longer, watching the game.
"You know this game is pointless, right? You get nothing out of it. Learn nothing. You don't expand your horizons in the slightest."
"Play next game and we'll see who isn't learning anything. We will kick your shapely round ass."
"Hey!" Annette felt a sudden heat go to her face. Did they think she had a good butt? She spent so much time hiding her cleavage, she sometimes forgot people might be distracted by her behind.
* * *
Annette and Jason walked through the misty evening on their way back from bible study. Normally, Annette was cautious about walking or talking alone with a guy. She didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression! But Jason was safe. They had started the year together, and were both from good religious families. Jason was studious, serious, and had similar views to her own.
It didn't hurt that he was skinny, and shorter than her: he was clearly not a match for her. The guy she was nervous around was Logan. Logan had been a marine for four years before college, and that confidence showed in his posture, his strength, the clear grey eyes. To be honest, she didn't like to think about Logan too much, and avoided him.
But Jason was safe.
"I just don't understand why everyone is so rude to me," she said.
Jason shrugged. "They're jealous. You're smart, beautiful."
Annette laughed. "That's sweet of you to say, but I'm nothing special. Not like...
Faith
... and she seems to be getting along fine. I
want
to be a good evangelist, I
want
to show the love of God, and help people
see
..."
"Well, Faith is no great evangelist. I'm not sure she's even Christian."
Annette looked at him sharply, "Jason: you usually have a kind word for everyone! Don't judge!"
Jason shrugged. "Well, maybe go a little easier on trying to convince people of anything. People never want to hear they might be wrong, that's my philosophy."
"But... they
are
wrong!"
Jason shrugged, "So are we, probably. No human mind can know the fullness of God."
Annette frowned. "What's gotten into you tonight, Jason? But anyway, here's my dorm of course. Will you be at the large group meeting on Saturday?"
* * *
Annette lay curled in her small bed.
Sleep had been slow to come, and now she was awake again. Aaliyah was snoring lightly across the small room.
But beyond the thin wall someone was not snoring. That would be Michelle. Mishi, as she called herself. Some sound had woken Annette, and now she couldn't
not
hear it: the creaking of the bed, the sounds of pleasure.
Disgusted, Annette had turned and put the pillow over her head, which as well and good, but she couldn't sleep. All she could think about was that creaking of the bed. Was it just Mishi? Mishi awake in the night and... doing that to herself? Or did she have a guest? What of Savannah? Savannah couldn't be in the room with that could she? Annette couldn't stop herself: she turned her body into the corner made by her bed and the wall and pressed her ear to the cool drywall.
Mishi: "Uh, oh, yeah, yeah, fuuuuck..."
And there was another grunting sound. And it did not sound like a guy's voice!
"You like that? How about this?"
Mishi: "Fuuck, what? Huh, huh, huh, how?"
What were they doing?
Annette tried to cast all the pictures from her mind. She didn't want to know what perversion was happening there!
But the images kept coming, and she didn't pull her ear away from the wall either.
Mishi's groans were intensifying. Annette could even hear her breath. Sharp, hard gasps. The pitch of her voice was rising. The bed creaked and scratched at the wall.
"Oh really?" the other woman's voice seemed to be in dialog with Mishi, even though Mishi was apparently beyond words, just gasping, grunting, and moaning. "You think you're going to cum for me?"
Annette tried to place the voice, but it wasn't clear enough. She had to sort of half-imagine the words, and she didn't like that these were the words resolving in her own pure mind.
She had to admit, it sounded like something a lot stronger than a sneeze. Her own mother had said that-the sneezing thing-in one of their dreaded birds and bees talks.
Her mother had said, "The important thing, Annette, is love. Your love for your husband, and his for you. Your love for God, and God's love for you. Love is what is important. Someday you will have children of your own, and then you will know the greatest love that a woman has on this earth. And then you will know how God loves us, his children. We want our children to be safe, to be successful, to be happy, to know they are loved. Society is obsessed with sex, but sex is just a momentary pleasure compared to love, barely more than a sneeze. But when we abuse that pleasure, it becomes a sickness. Then a little sneeze becomes covid, and it poisons our ability to love others, it is not loving to ourselves, and it is a disappointment to God."
"Oh my Gawwwd," Mishi was no longer stifling her sounds. Annette heard something in that long groan that she couldn't get out of her head. Maybe it wasn't love, but that was no sneeze. And Mishi wasn't done: "Fuuuck, I can't, I can't."
"Yeah, you can. You will. Cum for me again, now. Cum for me now."
The bed on the other side of the wall trembled and rattled. Mishi let out an elongated howl.
Annette felt heat all through her body. She couldn't think straight. That sound! It did something to her. She had to pull her hands up and clasp them in front of her, because they seemed to have a life of their own.
She could only picture Michelle's face. She was a plain girl, kind of thin. Long brown hair with no particular shape to it. But what did plain-girl Michelle look like when she was making those sounds?
"What did you just do to me, Katie?" Michelle asked.
Who was Katie? Was there a Katie in their dorm? Annette didn't think so. At least not on their floor. Where was Savannah? Annette tried to put all the puzzle pieces together. Michelle was a
lesbian
?
"Sshhh, go to sleep now, Mishi."
"But you..."
"Shhh. Next time. Come on, cuddle up. Let me feel all that beautiful skin."
Mishi moaned again, and there was a shifting on the other side of the wall.
Annette lay with her ear there for quite a while, but there were no more sounds until eventually someone over there was snoring there too.
Only Annette was awake now, her body on fire, electricity flickering through her.
* * *
Annette didn't remember sleeping at all, but it must have come, because she awoke from strange and disturbing dreams. After a long, cool shower and some quality time in front of the mirror, she started to feel like herself again. There was still an irritation and restlessness in her body, and she vowed to make use of the gym later that day. She didn't like the gym, and she didn't like wearing exercise clothes. She felt practically naked in them. On second thought, maybe just a long walk...
She saw Jason in the food court. He was drinking coffee and looking somber.
"What's wrong, J?" she asked.
He looked up, startled, and his expression grew even more dour.
"Just the wrong side of bed I guess."
"Want to pray together?" she said, setting her plastic tray with it's breakfast burrito and cup of tea down on the table.
He shrugged.
She reached for his hand. "Lord please hear our prayer, make us a joyful heart this day and reveal yourself to us in new ways. Help us become our best selves, and forgive us all the ways we fall short of that in your eyes and in our own. May this food strengthen us to thy service. Amen."
"Amen," Jason said.
"You know what I wish?" Annette said. Jason still didn't look like he was going to talk. "You know how catholics have confession? Of course it's silly, no
human
has any authority to forgive sin, and it's just another abuse in its way, but I can see the appeal. It would be nice to be able to just walk away from all our mistakes, don't you think? To become a new person. It would be like being born again, only all the time."
Jason furrowed his brow. "Now it's your turn to sound, uh, 'not yourself.' Is there something you want to confess?"
Suddenly Annette found herself blushing. "No, no, it was just a thought that came to me. Sometimes I just blurt out a thought; I guess I should be more careful. Well, what's got you so down?"
Jason looked at her for an uncomfortably long time. For a moment Annette wondered if he saw something in her? Some sign of her shameful night? Maybe he was disappointed in her? She banished the thought from her mind and held her friendliest smile.
Finally he looked away.
"Just tired I guess. Have a paper due on Monday that's giving me a hard time."
* * *
Michelle was in the lounge that afternoon.
"Oh, hi, Mishi," Annette said with as much cheerfulness as she could muster. "I haven't seen Savannah around recently? Is she away?"
Michelle gave her an odd look. "Her grandma died. She left last night. I didn't know you even