All of her life, Maria Alvarez has been sure of three things.
1.) The Lord God will protect and guide her thought all of the trials of life.
2.) Vampires are soulless husks of their former selves, little more than animated bodies feedi...
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The days passed, and Maria grew restless. Carmen asked her what she wanted for her birthday, but Maria told her she couldn't think of anything.
In truth, she already knew what she wanted. She wanted to be honest with Carmen.
The day of her birthday came, and Mrs. Webber gave her the day off. Carmen was at work, so she was left alone in her room. Alone with her thoughts, and with her fear.
She stood in front of the mirror in her room, studying the length of her body. The girl in the mirror stared back at her, the girl with the dead eyes. She blinked, but the emptiness didn't go away.
She pulled off her sweater, then her skirt, discarding the clothing on a lump pile at her feet. She kicked them away, out of view of the mirror, and continued to examine herself. She took a deep breath, and unhooked her bra, throwing it to the side, doing the same with her panties right after.
As she glanced over herself, the words she'd been told her entire life echoed through her mind.
Women should be ashamed of their bodies. Women are more inclined toward the sin of adultery. Women's bodies are inherently more carnal, more sexual in nature. That's why we should cover them, and be shamefaced.
"But Why?" Maria whispered, her fingers brushing the mirror.
If god made women perfectly, exactly how he wanted them to be, then why was her body shameful? Why did God want that? Wasn't she fearfully and wonderfully made? Famous painters didn't finish their master works, only to hide them under a sheet.
And why was she always told that women didn't feel lust when they saw naked people like men did when that obviously wasn't true? If women were inclined to be adulterous, then they must feel lust.
She imagined Father David explaining that women were more emotional, less logical than men, and that's why they were prone to affairs. But it still didn't make sense. Wasn't lust an emotion? Wasn't she also told that men were so sexually inclined that they couldn't force themselves to hold back? How was that logical?
She picked up the pillow from the foot of her bed and threw it at the door. She tried to clear her head, to stop the thoughts racing through her mind. She wanted Father David's voice to shut up. To get out of her head and stop telling her what to do for once. He wasn't even here. He had no right to tell her what to do when he wasn't even here.
She turned back to the mirror, looking over her body once more. Father David wouldn't stop her from finding out the truth, from figuring out herself. She reminded herself again that he wasn't here.
Experimentally, she lifted a hand and cupped her breast. She had always been busty, ever since puberty, but she had never taken the time to look at herself. She had never noticed the mole she had under her left breast, or that she still had the scar on her side from when she fell out of a tree when she was ten. She had never taken time to examine the width of her hips or the span of her shoulders, short and sloping.
