Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.

In her leaving, she said someone would come.  I had thought that was Jesus, in His second coming, but a new Babs, a little older, the model for the posable action figure arrived.  While I had no desire to start over with romance, Morrie helped her move in, thinking she was the other Babs who had returned.

This Week’s Question

Last week, Babs and I flew back home late last Friday night, just to awaken with half a night’s sleep.  Babs was her normal perky self.  At the food bank distribution, almost everyone asked about married life and Babs showed her ring to everyone.  And when I say everyone, food bank volunteers and the families being helped.  If you ever met Babs, you remembered her.  And when they came out to my table almost everyone wanted to talk about how I was dragging around and I must have been “busy” the night before.  I let them talk.  By the time we got to the house the night before, it was midnight.  And after we shook the rose petals that covered our new bed to the floor, I was setting an alarm for four hours later, and we had not turned out the lights.  I will let them keep their fantasy about why Babs was so extra perky and I was barely awake.

This week Babs was being a bit irritating.

Babs had all the drawers from her chest of drawers scattered on the bed.  “Harold, we are married.  That means we share in doing things.  I have no idea which Lily the Pink employees to thank for all this.  Pink refuses to admit she had anything to do with it, but we know she was behind it.  They have my clothing on one side of the room and your clothing on the other.  I thought we were married.  Should we not share the same space?  Why do we have everything divided?”

I was reading my Bible, sitting on the small portion of the bed that she had not cluttered with drawers of bras, stockings, and ummm drawers.  I did not even look up from my Bible.  “As Billy Graham used to say, ‘The Bible says, “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.” (Deuteronomy 22:5).’  If we start co-mingling our drawers of drawers, I might accidentally wear the wrong thing.”

Babs groaned, “You have already talked about how my thongs are unlike any panties your wife or mother ever wore.  There is not enough cloth in my undies, or drawers as you say, to cover a mouse.  So, if you wore my undies, it would not be by accident.  Frankly, I can imagine you in them, and the mental picture is hilarious.  Now, me wearing your bamboo fiber boxer briefs may not look sexy, but they feel so good when I fold them, I have been wanting to try them on.  Hey!  Wait a cotton picking cotton picking!  How could you just rattle off that obscure Bible verse?”

I said, “No Bible verse should be obscure if the verse says that God detests something, but there is another verse a few verses later that I looked up at work a few times. ‘When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.’ (Deuteronomy 22:8).  We think we invented the idea of building codes, but they had building codes roughly 4000 years ago.  And the Southern expression is wait a cotton picking minute, but they never pronounce the ‘G.”

Babs huffed, “Not the way Francis Franks says it.  And I should know that you remember Scripture associated with building codes.  I don’t know which is worst?  Engineers or Men!”

I shrugged, “A male engineer?”

Babs came over and kissed me.  “At least you admit to it.  I’m going to rearrange the drawers and leave the chest where it is.  I would hate for you to get titillated by my bras when you open the wrong drawer.”

I said, “No, but I am more titillated by what normally occupies the cups of your bras.”

Babs gasped, “Harold, you don’t mean that word that starts with ‘T’ that you cannot say on television?  Hmm.  Do those two words have the same root word?”

Still with my head buried in the Bible, I said, “No. I looked it up a few years ago.  Titillated comes from the same root word that we also get tickle.  The other word comes from a corruption of the German word, zitze, or teat in English meaning the nipple.  Or the Italian’s vulgar word for the same thing, tette.”

Babs huffed, “Harold, you said ‘tickle’.  What do you have in mind?”

Not flinching at all, I said, “Continuing to read.”

Babs said in a sexy, breathy voice, “And what could be so important to read with your wife of less than a month right here in the room with you?”

I read, “But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:2-5).

Babs nodded.  I know that because I took a quick glance.  She had moved one of the drawers and placed it near her chest of missing drawers.  She was not dressed for housework.  She had on one of the naughtiest of her lingerie.  “Harold, that sounds interesting.  Tell me more.”

I again read, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Hebrews 13:4).

Babs said, “Is there something more specific that you might read on the topic?”

I again read, “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?” (Proverbs 5:18-20).

Babs grabbed the remaining drawers and placed them on top of the other drawers.

I asked, “Aren’t you going to rearrange your drawers?”

Babs sighed, “You have me intoxicated, Harold.  Why haven’t you taken me to your bed and had your way with me?”

I shrugged, “I was wanting to suggest that, but you had the bed filled with your drawers.”

Babs asked, “Are you referring to the drawers that had once been in my chest of drawers?  Or are you referring to the drawers that you wear to cover your under regions?”  Then she took a thong and using like a sling shot, she fired it at my head.  She asked, “Anything else?”

I shrugged, “How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice!”: (Song of Songs 4:10).

Babs said, “That did it!”  She jumped on top of me and sat on my thighs.  Then she leaned forward.  With one finger on the spine, she pushed the Bible lower and lower until we made eye contact.  She said, “Consider your next answer carefully.  Anything more?”

I raised an index finger, “One more.”  Her eyes went from hurt to enraged to pleading.  I read, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.” (Song of Songs 1:2).

I placed the Bible on the nightstand, and she was all over me.  She said in a raspy voice, full of hunger, “Harold, I didn’t know a Bible Study could be so erotic!”

She kissed my lips.  I was interested.

She nibbled my ear and licked my neck.  I was titillated.

But then my engineering brain kicked in.  All I could think of was a question.  Was it more alluring to see a lovely lady’s naked breasts, in the nude, with nothing to hide?  Or to see lingerie, red lace, hardly covering anything at all, but just enough lace in the right places to obscure a full view?  What was I thinking?  I had to take my inner slide rule and cast it aside for the moment.

Then, I found what I was missing.

She buried my face in the lace.  I was aroused.

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

And I do believe we had this very Bible Study.  We had two children, so I guess we had this Bible Study twice.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.