Flaurie Neveu Keyes, a Christian woman, loves the planet Venus and dreams of going there someday.
Unfortunately, her love for Venus hinders her walk in Christ. Flanders Nickels, A Christian guy himself, is a neighbor who is a stranger and to whom Flaurie is a stranger. He loves his menagerie of solid-colored maillots, and he dreams of having a girlfriend someday who will put these on for him. However, his one-piece swimsuit fetish gets in the way of his worship of God. Boy meets girl; one thing leads to another; and God gets them both right in the Lord.
THE WOMAN WHO WANTED TO GO TO VENUS
By Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
Her name was Miss Flaurie Neveu Keyes, and she loved the planet Venus. She studied it, dreamed about it, and wanted to someday visit it. She was a young born-again Christian woman, and she referred to her God as “The Maker of Venus.” And she referred to Venus as “my planet of planets.”
And right now, as she sat upon her hardwood floor in her bedroom before the table lamp, she was reading another book about her planet.
The planet Venus is the second planet from the sun in the solar system. The Romans named this planet after their goddess of love and beauty. Being the brightest planet, it could be seen by Flaurie at times in the daytime sky of Earth. Flaurie’s home planet Earth and her dream planet were called “sister planets,” because they are the closest neighbors in the solar system, and because they are of similar diameter and surface area and volume and mass. Regarding the rotation and revolution of Venus, indeed its rotation takes longer than does its revolution. It takes Venus two hundred forty-three Earth days to rotate on its axis. And it takes Venus two hundred twenty-five Earth days to orbit the sun.
A Venusian day takes longer than a Venusian year. Also, Venus rotates on its axis in the opposite
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direction to Earth’s rotation on its axis. Because of this, on Venus the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Venus is especially known for its clouds, which are higher in its atmosphere than are Earth’s clouds in its atmosphere. On Venus the clouds are twenty-eight miles to thirty-eight miles above the planet’s surface. On Earth, its clouds are only about six miles above the planet’s surface. Truly the clouds of Venus are filled with sulfuric acid droplets deadly poisonous. And Venus’s atmosphere is composed of ninety-six percent carbon dioxide. The surface of Venus is mainly molten smooth plains of basaltic rock and many big and little volcanoes. And the underground of Venus has a mantle of silicate minerals and a core of solid iron. The average temperature of Venus on ground level is between seven hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit and nine hundred thirty degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that can melt lead. And as for Venus’s gravity, a person weighing two hundred twenty pounds standing on Earth would weigh two hundred pounds standing on Venus. About the atmospheric pressure on Venus, standing upon the surface of this planet would be like standing nine hundred ninety yards deep in the sea on Earth. Venus is sixty-seven million miles away from the sun. And Venus and Earth are twenty-four million miles away from each other. Venus’s diameter is almost seven-and-one-half thousand miles. And Venus’s circumference is about twenty-three thousand miles.
How did Flaurie Neveu Keyes first fall in love with Venus and come to dream of being there herself? Astronomers call it a “transit.” And Flaurie discovered this transit in its great rarity one day some years ago. In this transit, the planet Venus passed across the sun in the skies of Earth. Flaurie had never thought to see such a thing before. How does such a transit take place as seen on Flaurie’s Earth? It was like a solar eclipse with the moon, except that instead of being a big black circle coming in front of the sun and blocking all of it, with Venus it was a tiny black circle coming in front of the sun and blocking only a little circle of it. This comparison was such because the moon is much closer to Earth than is Venus. And this little black circle of Venus traveled across the big yellow circle of sun from one side to the other side. It was spooky. It was “supernatural.” It was a work of the Creator
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long after creation was completed. And it was the most fascinating thing that Flaurie had ever seen.
And when it was done, Miss Keyes said, “I want to go there, Mom and Dad.” That was the year 2004. The last times the transit of Venus had taken place was in 1874 and in 1882. The next time for a transit of Venus was to be the year 2012.
Flaurie knew where the King James Bible referred to Venus. It spoke of the creation of the sun and the stars and the planets and the moon on the fourth day of creation. It is written about Venus and all of the universe beyond the Earth, “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” Genesis 1:14-19.
Indeed a Christian’s love for creation duly magnifies the Creator most aptly. However, Flaurie’s love for the creation of Venus only seemed to make her love for her own Creator abated. She must have loved Venus too much. Often times, when she was reading her Bible, thoughts about searching the internet to find out more about Venus distracted her and often took her away from her Bible study after only a little time. And she would go and search the web to find out more about Venus. And lots of times, when she was busy praying, her intercessions to God for her fellow believers and her lost loved ones began to become fantasies about traveling to her planet of planets, and she would get to thinking to herself and no more to God. And prayer ended early those times. And at church, when Pastor was preaching a great sermon again, she would start to remember her dreams of the night about actually being on Venus. And Pastor would be preaching the message that God had him to preach that day, and Flaurie Keyes would no longer be listening to his sermon. And she would miss most of what
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God had to tell her from the pulpit that church service.
Flaurie had a neighbor in this Astor Park neighborhood whose name was Flanders Nickels. He lived on the other side of her square block behind her, on a parallel street also running north and south. Flanders and Flaurie did not know each other, nor had they ever met. He, like herself, was a born-again Christian with a stumbling block in his walk with Christ. In his reverence for his Saviour Jesus Christ, he often referred to God as “The Most High.” And his stumbling block was his menagerie of one-piece swimsuits filling his closet. He collected maillots to keep and to save for the magical day in his life where he would find a pretty Christian girlfriend; she would put on these maillots to look good for him and because she would also have a fondness for maillots. All of these one-piece swimsuits in his closet were solid patterns of all the colors that women’s swimwear came in. None were of any patterns. None had more than one color to itself. Each was of one color. None were two-piece swimsuits. Flanders Nickels wanted to tell his first girlfriend to come, “One-piece swimsuits are sexier than two-piece swimsuits.” And his menagerie was of different women’s sizes throughout his closet. And they were all hung up on hangers by their shoulder straps on horizontal poles in order of increasing sizes—just like in the department stores in swimsuit season in northern Wisconsin. And he cherished them and took care of them as a master would a new puppy or a new kitten.
He was in his closet now admiring a most deep and sensual red one-piece swimsuit on its hanger. Its shoulder straps were narrow in the front and narrower in the back, and they had golden metal circles and sliders. The swimsuit liner inside was the same dark red as the swimsuit outside. As for the cups, their interior was black. He took a look at the label along the edge within at the side of the cup and did read the following: “Size 14.” He did not know if this were for a small or medium or large woman. He also read the word “zinfindel.” This must have been the name that they gave this dark red color of the swimsuit. He also read the words “shell 85% nylon 15% elastane, lining 100% polyester.” This must be the fabric to this one-piece swimsuit. The back of this maillot went up quite high, right
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up to the level of the bottom of the cups. He then became naughty and did look deep into the crotch of this brick red one-piece swimsuit. And he saw a strange little piece of label down in there where it was no man’s business. He looked into it and did read the words, “hygienic liner; remove for fitting purposes.” He was going to “fit it.” So he removed this liner. And he prayed a most bold and maybe impudent prayer, “O Most High: I cannot wait any longer for a real girl to come along and put this one-piece swimsuit on for me. I guess that I will have to put it on for myself.”
And Flanders Nickels put on a women’s one-piece swimsuit for his first time. He left the closet and walked around his bedroom in it. It did feel better than anything else that he had ever done before. Maillots really were quite comfortable to wear. This maillot felt comfortable both sensually and practically to him. It felt sensually comfortable because of the feminine cut and feel of the fabric of this garment. And it felt practically comfortable because it was easier and less involved than his pants and shirt of his men’s clothes. “I seem to be a women’s size fourteen, O Most High,” he did pray, his life now opened up to a brave new world he had dared to enter into. “Most High, I like this. I love this. I need this.” he did pray.
And, in his women’s maillot, he went to his desk, opened up the Holy Bible to Romans chapter seven, and did read in silence to himself verses fifteen to twenty-five: “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that doeth it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who
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shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
For just a moment the Spirit and the flesh were battling inside this new drag queen’s Christian heart. But the spell of drag in its novel fetish overcame this man who had held on to the leaven of maillot in his walk with God.
Flanders Nickels shut his King James Bible up on top of this desk.
Flanders Nickels said to God, “Now for some real fun, O Most High.”
Flanders Nickels stepped outside in the dark of night and began to walk around the block as he was. It was 10:45 P.M. the time when Green Bay was asleep. Probably no one would see him. And if one did see him, so what? The summer air felt good upon his body in this one-piece swimsuit. And the thrill of this nocturnal walk all the way around the block was such that if he was caught in this, he could not quickly go and hide inside his apartment, because he was not right now anywhere near his apartment, way out here in the open as he was. In fact he wanted people to see him like this. So this was how it felt to be a one-piece swimsuit woman! He ended the first stretch of block and turned right to walk down the second stretch of block. There was no turning back. He was in this to the end and very glad about it at that. He walked down the second stretch of block and turned right again and began to walk down the third stretch of block. He got to the middle of this third stretch of block and he was now at the halfway part of this fascinating hike. He was now the farthest away from his home of this walk around the block. Two more right turns, the first one to walk down the fourth stretch of block and the last one to walk the last three houses back to his apartment on his stretch of block and he would be home from the most exciting stroll of his life. He was now on the complete opposite side of his square block in its back on a parallel street. A young woman who loved Venus lived here.
It was close to eleven o’clock at night, and Flaurie Neveu Keyes was in her front yard gazing and staring upon the planet Venus from just before her sidewalk. She had been here since ten o’clock.
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The meteorologist on TV said that Venus would be at its brightest tonight and that it would shine brighter even than the stars. And the weatherman was right. And Flaurie took especial delight in looking up into the nighttime sky this night.
The nocturnal walker around the block, saw this nocturnal watcher of the skies just up ahead only one house away. And he started in nerves. Someone was going to see him, and now it was too late for him. Well, this was what it was all about for him. But he stopped his walk anyway and waited and pondered what he should do. Hopefully, though, everything was going to end up good for him. And with boldness of drag, he resumed his walk. He just had to be seen now. This was almost too good to be true. But it was going to happen. Here goes.
And she saw him, and he saw her. It was a woman in the dark, a stunning woman, a woman a little smaller and a little shorter than himself, a real girl who saw him as he now was. She called out, “Ma’am? Sir?” in some uncertainty of this time of the night.
“Miss?” he called out in tentative greeting.
“A guy,” she said. “You dress like a miss, I do have to say, sir.”
“I kind of feel like a miss tonight,” he said.
“Well, you look awful silly dressed in that,” she said.
“But I feel great,” he said.
“I heard about men like you,” she said. “Cross dressers and all.”
“This is my first day,” he said about his new lifestyle.
“I respect that,” she said.
“What brought you here at a time like this?” he asked.
“Oh, I was looking at Venus this night, sir,” she said. “I live here.” She pointed to her building.
“I live on the back side of this block,” he said.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
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“Flanders,” he said. “Flanders Arckery Nickels. What’s your name, Miss?”
“Flaurie,” she said. “Flaurie Neveu Keyes.”
“Do you look at Venus lots?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” said Flaurie. “Venus has stolen my heart years ago.”
“Women’s maillots have stolen my heart years ago,” he said. “My life dream used to be to have a girl on a date have one of my one-piece swimsuits on just for me some day, Flaurie.”
“You might not find such a girl if you come scaring her in the middle of the night in a women’s one-piece swimsuit like you do, Flanders,” said Flaurie Keyes.
“Sorry if I frightened you, Flaurie,” said Flanders. “I had no idea that I would actually see someone outside here so late like this.”
“”I have a life dream, also, Flanders,” said Flaurie.
“Is it maybe about this Venus that we are looking at?” asked Flanders.
“Yeah,” she said, finding herself comfortable with this strange new fellow.
“What is it?” he asked.
“My life dream is to actually go and visit Venus for real for myself,” she said.
“I heard that Venus is uninhabitable—being so hot and so poisonous and all,” he said.
“I believe in my faith that if God does bring there for just a little while that He will also keep me safe there all the time that I be there,” she said.
“Are you a born-again believer, Flaurie?” asked Flanders.
“Yes! I am saved by the blood of the Lamb of God, Flanders,” she said.
“So am I,” he said. “I have been born again into the family of God now for some years,”
“We are both Christians, Flanders,” said Flaurie Keyes.
“God told me never to date an unsaved girl,” he said.
“And God also told me to never date a lost guy,” she said.
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“We could date each other and it would be good in the eyes of the Most High,” he said to Flaurie.
“We could call right now our first date, Flanders,” she said.
“And we could pray to God and have the Most High tell us if we are meant for each other as boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-Christ,” said Flanders Nickels.
“I would like to try on one of your one-piece swimsuits someday if you have any to spare,” she said.
“My closet is full of a menagerie of such maillots,” said Flanders. “I can easily spare one for you to put on, Flaurie.” He then said, “And I would like to find out more about your Venus. We could get together on a date, and you could teach me what you know about that planet. We could do that lots of times together if we became boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord, O Flaurie.”
“I once heard of a billionaire who offers rocket rides into outer space,” said Flaurie. “If I were a millionaire, I could pay him for a rocket ride to my beloved Venus,”
“Proffery Coins III,” said Flanders.
“That good and kind Croesus,” praised Flaurie this man of rockets.
“Proffery Coins III,” said Flanders again.
“Yeah. That’s he,” said Flaurie upon the name of this famous person.
“I know him,” said Flanders.
“Yes. Everybody knows him,” said Flaurie.
“But I know him as a best friend,” said Flanders.
“He’s the best friend of everybody who gets to ride in his rockets,” said Flaurie, misunderstanding Flanders’s simple declarative sentence in its literal meaning.
“What I’m saying, Flaurie, is that he is my real best friend, and that I am his real best friend,” said Flanders Nickels.
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“Is that true?” she asked, incredulous.
“It is true, Flaurie,” said Flanders.
“Is that really true?” she asked, believing.
“It is really true,” he said.
“How did you and he become best friends?” asked Flaurie Keyes.
“At one time we were roommates in the dorm room at college. We were fellow students and best friends and roommates all at the same time all four years at college,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Was he rich then?” she asked. “Was he very rich then?”
“No and no. Not then,” said Flanders.
“Where did Proffery Rule Coins III get all of his money?” asked Flaurie.
“My best friend’s grandfather, Proffery Coins Sr., manufactured vacuum tubes for the very first generation computers of the 1960’s. And he got very rich in his business. He passed away with his son –an only child–as his sole heir. This heir was my best friend’s father, Proffery Coins Jr. With this great inheritance he began to manufacture transistors for a later generation of computers. He got even more rich in his business. Then he passed away as well, with his son, again an only child, as his sole heir. This, as you can guess, was my best friend Proffery Coins III. And with his inheritance he began to manufacture computer chips for our current generation of computers here these days. And he got very rich in business. And he became the richest of the three.”
“What a student. What a friend. What a roommate,” said Flaurie Keyes.
“What a believer, too,” said Flanders.
“He’s a born-again believer like us?” asked Flaurie.
“That he is,” said Flanders.
“When we three get raptured up, that will make any of his rocket trips seem plain,” said Flaurie.
“How did you get saved, Flaurie?” he asked.
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“I got saved at a little white church in the wildwood,” she said. “I was passing through a small northern town on a trip, and I was in a woods, and I saw a church in there. I could hear people singing songs about God in there. I had to go in there and find out all about God. And I got spontaneous. So I stopped my journey, came in to the parking lot, and went to church for my first time. I found out that it was a Baptist church and a fundamental church and a King James Bible only church.”
“Three things that any church of God must be indeed,” said Flanders.
“I was hoping to get to hear a good sermon, and I got to hear a great sermon instead. The pastor preached hellfire and brimstone for forty-five minutes. And after the service ended, I quickly came up to the pastor and asked him how a girl like myself can go to Heaven. And we sat down at a table, and he opened his Bible to the book of Romans, and he led me through a series of verses all about salvation,” said Flaurie.
“Ah, the go-to verses in leading a lost soul to salvation—The ‘Romans’ Road’ verses,” said Flanders.
“Then the Pastor led me through a prayer line-by-line from start to finish,” said Flaurie.
“Yes. ‘The sinner’s prayer,’” said Flanders.
“And that is how I got saved, Flanders,” said Flaurie.
“You asked for and received God’s free gift of eternal life, Flaurie,” he said.
“And then the pastor told me that I can never lose the salvation that I received just then from Jesus. ‘Once saved, always saved,’ he told me,” said Flaurie.
“Amen! The eternal security of the believer,” said Flanders the name of this Biblical promise.
“How did you find Christ as Saviour, Flanders?” she asked.
“I also got saved at a little fundamental King James Bible Baptist church,” he said. “Mine was little white church in the vale.”
“Your place of salvation was a church in a valley then, Flanders?” she asked.
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“Uh huh,” he said. “I was on a walk down a two-rutted road as a teenager still living with Mom and Dad. On one side of the two-rutted road was a cornfield. On the other side of the two-rutted road was a hay field. And in the middle of the two-rutted road, of course, was tall green field grass blowing in the wind.”
“That’s why they call such roads ‘two-rutted roads,’” said Flaurie. “The road is two ruts of dirt.”
“I was walking down this isolated road, Flaurie,” when, strangely enough, a whole line of station wagons began to come up to me from behind,” said Flanders. “I stepped off to the side. And they began to pass me and to continue on. And then the last one passed me and continued on. There must have been fifty cars going down this road in the middle of nowhere. And they were all station wagons. I began to run on up ahead to see if I could find out more. And then up ahead, there they all were, parked in a valley in a big field. And there was a little white building there with a steeple and a bell tower and a cross. They were all going to church. Curious, I then went to this church. And I heard a great sermon on the glories of Heaven for almost an hour. And I knew that I was not going there. I decided right then to find out how to get there. And when the pastor asked if any one in his flock wanted to get something right with God, that they could come forward and make it public if the Holy Spirit bade them to. The Holy Spirit bade me, Flaurie. And I came up to the front and most humbly and sincerely told the pastor and the flock that I needed God to bring me to Heaven when I die. And they all said, “Amen,” in good Christian compassion. I had come to the right place. And the pastor bade me to go with Usher Morgan to the pastor’s office where Morgan could tell me how to get saved. I went there. He read to me the Roman’s Road. He led me through the prayer of salvation line-by-line. And he led me to my salvation that day in the pastor’s office. I had accepted Jesus’s free gift of everlasting life. That, good Flaurie, is how I became a born-again Christian. And when I came back to the auditorium and confessed my profession of faith to these good people of God, they all said,
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‘Amen!’ I had done the right thing in God for the good of my eternal soul.”
“It is good to be born again, not only in this life, but oh so much more so in the life to come for you and me,” said Flaurie Keyes.
“Alleluia!” agreed Flanders.
“So, Flanders. Could I try on one of your one-piece swimsuits tonight?” she asked.
“Right now?” he asked with bated breath. “Do tell me, ‘Yes,’ O Flaurie.”
“Right now, if it is not too late for you,” said Flaurie. “Yes!” It was almost midnight now. But both were too excited right now to give up on this day to start the new day the next morning.
“Do follow me, milady,” he said. And they joined hands and began to walk toward the far opposite side of the block, needing to take two more right turns on the sidewalk on their way to his apartment. “Funny how I was going to take these last two right turns alone in my maillot, Flaurie, and I thought that it was the most exciting walk that I had ever taken. And now I am with you, and these two last right turns are now more than just exciting,” said Flanders. “They are better.”
“Not every straight drag queen finds a girlfriend on his first day of drag,” said Flaurie Keyes.
And in a whirlwind of good wholesome romance, he found himself with her with his menagerie in his closet.
She said, “Why, Flanders, there is more women’s swimwear in here than whole department stores have,”
“More than Shopko and K-Mart, but less than Penney’s and Younker’s and Sears,” he did say.
“Do you have any that are size ten?” she asked. “I am size ten.”
“Those are over here, between size eight and size twelve,” he did brag on his maillot selection.
“May I browse?” she asked.
“I would be honored if you took your time and browsed, Flaurie,” he said.
And she went “shopping” in his closet of solid one-piece swimsuits to find just the right one to
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put on for herself and for him. For Flanders Nickels this was like a dream come true. Though he had prayed over and over to God for a girl to go one-piece swimsuit shopping with him for him to buy her the one that she wanted, it had never happened. But now it was happening in a different way and right here with his own maillots. In the end, she picked out a solid blue maillot. And she read the tag, “Size ten. Made in Vietnam. Navy Blue.”
“Could I put this one on, Flanders?” she asked.
“Make yourself irresistible for a lonely guy,” he said.
“May I use your bathroom to dress up in this?” she asked, holding up the maillot in both hands by the shoulder straps.
“It is at the other end of the apartment three rooms away,” he said.
“What should we do with me in this?” she asked.
“We could sit outside on my front stoop and go back to looking at Venus,” he said.
“You would really like that?” she asked. He nodded most affirmatively.
“And we could talk about God,” he said.
“I would like that lots,” she said.
And at once she skipped to the bathroom and took off her regular clothes and put on this wonderful new one-piece swimsuit. Before she showed herself to her new boyfriend, she said, “I’ll have you know, Flanders, that I never had on anything like a one-piece before. I always put on two-pieces.”
“One-piece swimsuits are always more sexy than two-piece swimsuits, girl,” he flirted with her.
“You’re an unusual guy for saying that,” said Flaurie.
“How does it fit?” he asked.
“Let me come to you, and you decide,” she said.
And she skipped back up to him and stood before him at the closet doorway. In self-
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effacement, he said “I do say, Flaurie, your maillot fits you a lot better than my maillot fits me.”
“Let’s go out into the night and talk about Venus and Jesus,” she said. “And about women’s swimsuits.”
“What else is there for a guy and a girl talk about than those three things?” he agreed.
And they went back out into the dark of night and sat upon the front stoop. He made sure to bring his King James Bible out with him on this first date with a Christian woman. It must surely be one o’clock in the morning by now.
“My maillot goddess,” he praised Flaurie Neveu Keyes.
“My not-so-secret greatest admirer,” she praised him back in pleasure of his affections.
“You should be called ‘Venus,’ and not the planet,” he said to her about the Roman goddess from whom her planet of planets was named.
In thoughts out loud she said, “I hope that I am not turning into my boyfriend’s new false god.”
“False idols,” he said out loud. “Those are bad things.”
“God always gets jealous of false idolatry,” said Flaurie.
“I promise not to make a god out of you, Flaurie,” he said. “My Jesus is the true God.”
“And my Jesus, too,” said Miss Keyes.
“The Old Testament of the Bible talks all about false gods,” said Flanders.
“Tell me about some of them, Flanders,” said Flaurie.
And they began to talk about the Lord and His Word of God: “Baal for one,” he said.
“Yes. Baal,” said Flaurie, remembering his name in the Scriptures throughout the Old Testament.
“He was the false god of rain and good crops,” said Flanders.
“Such foolishness to believe in Baal,” said Flaurie. “Anybody who knows anything has to admit that only the Lord Almighty can control the weather.”
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“Our Good Lord is the Author of all weather,” said Flanders. “Only God can make it rain.”
“Didn’t wise Solomon go and do dumb things with his many wives’ gods?” asked Flaurie. “He got stupid and bowed down before these pagan gods in worship.”
“Yes. That he did. His foreign wives turned away his heart from the true God of Israel,” said Flanders. “He went and worshipped Ashtoreth, the false goddess of Zidon. He went and worshipped Chemosh, the false god of Moab. He went and worshipped Molech, also called Milcom, the false god of Ammon.”
“Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and all of Egypt had a whole slew of their own false gods that they worshipped,” said Flaurie. “I heard one time that when God smote Pharaoh and Egypt with those famous ten plagues, that these ten plagues were specific disprovings of specific Egyptian gods at the time.”
“Yeah, Flaurie,” said Flanders. “It is written, ‘…: and against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment. I am the Lord.’ Exodus 12:12. Again it is written, ‘…: upon their [Egypt’s] gods also the Lord executed judgments.’ Numbers 33:4.”
“It almost seems that all of the false religions in the Old Testament involved dumb people bowing down in worship of mere statues,” said Flaurie in twenty-first century sophistication.
“They make a statue with their hands. They make a false god of it. They worship it in false idolatry.”
“In Isaiah 44:18-19, God talks about this very thing, Flaurie,” he said. “And he recited this passage to her, “They have not known nor understood; for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?”
“Oh, and don’t forget Psalm 115:4-8. too, O Flanders,” said Miss Flaurie Keyes. “There the
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psalmist of God says: ‘Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.’”
“To sum up the false idolatry of the Old Testament, Flaurie, false Egyptian gods and false Assyrian gods and false Babylonian gods and false Medo-Persian gods and false Greek gods and false Roman gods and all other false gods of Jews and Gentiles alike.” said Flanders Nickels.
“And false American gods of this twenty-first century United States, too,” said Flaurie.
“Do tell me what you’re saying about this modern time’s false idols,” said Flanders.
“Everything and anything for our fellow Americans that is more important to them than our Saviour Jesus Christ, is, by definition, a false idol,” said Flaurie Keyes.
“Like N.B.A basketball stars and Major League baseball stars and N.F.L. football stars, for example, Flaurie?” he asked.
“Like them. Yes,” said Miss Keyes.
“I now remember a fellow church person whom I once knew, Flaurie,” said Flanders. “We were sitting in church before the evening service began. This was a good time to rejoice in the goodness of the Lord. But he was not rejoicing in the Good Lord. He was crushed with another Milwaukee Brewer baseball defeat. And he was complaining about that game, saying, “Frustrating. Very frustrating.”
“I know about people like that, Flanders. And some of them actually profess salvation,” said Flaurie. “I found out that sports jocks who make false idols out of sports teams are among the least spiritual of Christians. It is like they never grow up in the Lord. Too bad.”
“I had another friend at one time who made a false god out of innocent Brett Favre, the great hall of fame Green Bay Packer quarterback. The happiest day of her life was that day when she and
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the rest of the fans at Lambeau Field welcomed back Brett Favre in a special commemoration after his retirement. She could be his greatest fan,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Jesus should be the reason for the happiest day of her life,” said Flaurie.
“She is lost,” said Flanders.
“No wonder,” said Miss Keyes. “Brett Favre never died for her sins. Jesus died for her sins.”
“I had another friend who made a god out of a person,” said Flanders. “She was the head cashier. She and her older husband by twenty years were happily married to each other. Of course the years passed, and he died of natural causes, and she lived as widow. She grieved and faced the rest of her life without him and died of a terminal disease not long later. When he passed away, her life was all over. Her happiness in this life had ended with the passing away of her husband.”
“So sad that a woman gives all of herself to a spouse and none of herself to Jesus,” said Flaurie.
“Spouses have to die sometime, but Jesus will never die.”
“Americans make false idols also of hard work and making money and gambling and immorality and the internet and TV and the theater and video games and sleep and smoking and illegal drugs and drinking,” said Flanders.
“And even good wholesome things and activities when they become more important than worshiping Jesus,” said Flaurie.
“I wouldn’t want to go around and make idols out of things,” said Flanders.
“Nor I, either,” said Flaurie.
“I wonder, though, if you make a false god out of your planet Venus,” said Flanders.
“I don’t fall down and worship my Venus,” she said. “But your fetish for your swimming suits does look like a false god to me in your life.”
“I don’t commit false idolatry with them, Flaurie,” he said quickly.
A sudden embarrassment passed upon both of them, their faces turning red in conviction of their
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sins.
“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” asked Flaurie Keyes.
“I am,” he said. “I am.”
“We should talk. We both also have false idols in our lives, and we of all people should know better,” said Flaurie.
“We are both born-again Christians with something between us and our Jesus that is not right in our lives,” confessed Flanders Nickels.
“What should believers do about a thing like this?” asked Flaurie.
“God would want us to repent of our false idolatry,” he said.
“We are both too much into our idols to get out now, Flanders,” she said.
“Nothing is impossible with God, Flaurie,” he said.
“But do we really want to?” she asked.
“Flaurie, we both need to learn to want to,” he said. “God can help us if we ask Him to.”
“But life without going to Venus, Flanders,” she said.
“No harder than for me to live without maillots,” he said. “I’ve got to do it. You’ve got to do it. We’ve both got to do it together,”
“If we did repent of our false gods, how long could we keep it up before we go right back into them?” she asked.
“I believe that that is something to leave up to God. He is Lord,” said Flanders.
“Maybe we should kind of pray and ask God to help us back on the straight and narrow way,” she said.
“Now would be better than later in a thing like this,” he said.
It was now the middle of the late night, well past the halfway point between dark and light. And the two one-piece swimsuit believers prayed out loud to God for Holy Ghost power to repent of their
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idols, the man first, and the woman second.
Just then a limousine pulled up right in front here and parked on the street. “Look, a real limousine,” said Miss Keyes.
“My best friend,” called out Flanders. “I wish that I had some clothes on now.” He ran his hand down his shoulder straps, first one and then the other.
“You don’t embarrass me. But you might embarrass your friend,” said Flaurie.
And a man in a dress hat and tuxedo and tie and shirt and cummerbund and pants and socks and dress shoes—all of pure and dignified white– got out of the passenger back seat. Flaurie at first thought looked for a white beard and white mustache and white hair upon this personage’s head, but she was surprised to see a young man near Flanders’s age, clean shaven, short dark hair, and not at all tall.
“Flanders,” called out this man.
“Proffery,” called out Flanders.
“I like the girl in her swimming suit, but I am not so sure about you in your swimming suit,” said Proffery. The two best friends shook hands. “”You look awful silly dressed in that,” said the billionaire.
“My date for the night told me the same thing,” said Flanders.
“You never cease to amaze me, Flanders,” said the very important person.
“What brought you here to my place at a time like this, Brother?” asked Flanders, very happy for this surprise visit.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I went riding,” he said. He then said, “I am sorry for my oversight, kind lady,” and he took off his hat in deference to the young woman. “I’m glad to meet you, miss. What’s your name?”
“My name is ‘Flaurie,’ kind sir,” she said. “You must be the famous Proffery Coins.”
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“My name indeed, Flaurie,” he told her. “Famous? Maybe yes or maybe no.” And he bowed before Miss Keyes in respect for her womanhood. And they shook hands. And he said, “Jesus saves!”
“Jesus saves,” said Flanders.
“Jesus saves,” said Flaurie.
Then Proffery Coins said, “I sent my first rocket to Mars last month. The passengers were absolutely thrilled. Everything went well. And everybody was satisfied. And now they want to have another ride in my rocket. They want me to take them to Venus. I plan on sending my next rocket to Venus about a month from now. And one of the passengers changed his mind and decided not to go. But he does not want his money refunded. It seems, Flanders and Flaurie, that he is as rich as I am, and he can afford to throw a million dollars away like this. So I brought with me his rocket trip ticket. It is a valid ticket for a ride on my rocket to Venus. Would you like to go to Venus, Flanders? It’s no charge, with the unusual circumstances being what they turned out to be.”
“Did you say ‘Venus,’ Proffery, ‘my Venus?’” asked Flaurie in passions.
“That I did say, good Flaurie,” he did say.
“You never sent a rocket to Venus before, O best friend,” said Flanders, intrigued by this opportunity for the woman.
“This will be mankind’s very first rocket trip to Venus,” said the Croesus of a man.
“Could I go, Mr. Coins?” asked Flaurie. “Could I go, Flanders?”
“I’m not much for traveling,” said Flanders. “Would you mind if I turned you down and let my girlfriend go there instead of myself, Brother Proffery?”
“If it makes the nice lady happy, then it makes me happy,” said Proffery.
“Oh thank you, Mr. Coins,” she said, and she gave him a big hug.
“Milady, a one-piece swimsuit gal should hug only her special boyfriend,” said Proffery in most honorable decorum.
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Regaining her female propriety, she said, “I especially thank you, Flanders,” and she hugged him, and he hugged her right back.
Then an enlightenment passed across Flanders’s eyes, and he said to her a most hurtful, yet compassionate, Bible verse, “’Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.’ I John 5:21, dear Flaurie.”
“Idols,” she said. “Like a rocket to Venus.” Not understanding, the benefactor said nothing.
Understanding most clearly, Flanders said, “Flaurie, if you go on that rocket, you may end up forgetting all about Jesus by the time you get back.”
“Why, if I went to Venus, I might never wish to leave Venus,” she said, realizing the great danger that her personal idol posed for her in her already stumbling walk with Christ.
“What would Jesus do?” asked Flanders, in seeking to exhort her to do the right thing in Christ.
“But what should I do?” she asked.
Not knowing what to say in this awkward circumstance that he did not understand, the billionaire gave the rocket trip ticket to Flanders, and said to the two young believers the words of I Corinthians 1:3: “Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” And he got back into the back passenger seat of the limousine and rode off back to his mansion in the city.
“What should I do?” she asked.
“You know what you should do. Now do it,” he said. He handed her the ticket.
“I must tear this up so that I do not lose my love for the real God. Don’t I?” she asked.
“I know the right Bible verse for this moment for you and for us,” said Flanders.
“Do you dare tell it?” she asked, becoming angry at her righteous boyfriend.
“I do, Flaurie,” he said. “It is written, ‘The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth hath he given to the children of men.’ Psalm 115:16. Thus saith the Lord, O stunning lady.”
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In Holy Spirit conviction and Word of God power and wisdom, Flaurie Neveu Keyes confessed now what this Bible verse said to her, “Outer space is no place for mankind.”
And in complete and sincere repentance, she ripped up this ticket.
And she promised God, “Lord, I no longer want to go to Venus. I belong only on this Earth.
I shall pursue my idol no more at the expense of our relationship as daughter-of-God-and-Heavenly- Father.”
“So great things have happened here this night, Flaurie,” he said.
It was now an hour before twilight in the morning out here on the front stoop.
“Now it is your turn, Flanders,” she said.
He hesitated.
“Your turn to repent now, Flanders,” she said.
“This spandex between my bottom and this cement feels pretty good now,” he said. “The gentle breeze stirs up my hormones as it blows upon me in this maillot. This is the most exciting that I have ever felt.”
“If you have to have your one-piece swimsuits still in your life, then give them all to me, and I will wear them every day on all of our dates for now on or until the rapture,” she said. “You can still see them, but they will be on me only.”
“You do look sexy in that dark blue one,” he said.
“And I will look sexy in the dark red one that you have on, Flanders,” she said.
“Promise me that you will never throw any of them out,” he said.
“I promise,” she said. “Now promise me that you will never ask me to give any or all of them back to you,” she said.
He sighed, and he said, “I cannot promise that quite yet, Flaurie.” He then went on to say, “First I have to give them all to you. And I have not done that yet.”
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“Do I have to tell you a Bible verse to make you change your mind, as your Bible verse did to me?” she asked.
“What does God’s Word have to say about a nice red maillot?” he asked.
“It says lots,” she said. “It is Genesis 1:27, and this is what it says to you and me, Flanders: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.’”
“That speaks to my heart, Flaurie. That Bible verse hurt,” he said.
“What does God say to you about your nice red maillot in that Scripture verse, O Flanders?” she asked in exhortation.
“God says that I am created a male, and that I should wear only male clothes, and God says that you are created female, and that you should wear only female clothes,” he said.
“As the girlfriend, I must be the only one in our dating relationship who wears the one-piece swimsuits,” she declared to him.
“I hereby give you my menagerie, lock, stock, and barrel,” he promised. “And I promise to never ask for any or all of them back.”
“Prove it,” she said.
“I shall, right now,” he said. And he darted into his apartment, was gone for a while, and came back out to this stoop dressed in blue jeans and a cotton short-sleeved shirt. In his arms, all bundled up in a ball, was his red fetish of spandex from this night.
“My, doesn’t my new guy look handsome?” praised Flaurie Keyes.
“In this?” he asked, looking down upon his plain men’s clothes.
“I want my boyfriend-in-the-Lord to look like a guy,” she said.
“Do you really think that?” he asked.
“Oh, I am so very much more glad that we are dating now that I see you in pants,” she said.
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“Why, if that is how you feel, I shall dress like a handsome prince for you every day,” he said.
He handed her the crumpled-up women’s one-piece swimsuit that had been his for the night.
“Oo, Flanders. Do take better care of this. I still want to put it on for myself, you know,” she said in flirt.
“And for myself, too,” he reminded her.
“I will put it on for you on our rendezvous tomorrow, if you would like,” she said.
“It’s a date, Flaurie,” he said. She took this red maillot and folded it up gently and set it on her lap.
He sat down next to her on this front porch, leaned his face toward her face, and went ahead to kiss her on her lips.
“Sassy man,” she teased him.
“I never got to do that with a maillot woman before,” he said.
“Did you do that with a woman who was not a maillot woman before?” she flirted with him.
“No. I never did,” he said. “But a one-piece swimsuit woman needs to have that to know that she is appreciated.”
“You wily guy, you,” she said, kissing him right back on his lips.
“You one-piece swimsuit goddess, you,” he flirted right back.
And now it was twilight in the morning. First light of day was gradually coming on for the two born-again believers whose fellowship with God had been restored this night with repentance. It had been quite a night all night outside here in this sweet fellowship between boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-Christ.
She held up the red maillot, and she put her hand to her belly of her blue maillot. “Time for your girlfriend to make good with her promise, Flanders,” she said. “I promised that I would put this on for you today.”
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“As good as navy blue looks on you, Flaurie, brick red would look even better on you,” he said.
“Why, thank you, boyfriend,” she said. And she ran up into his apartment into his bathroom and changed into the red one-piece swimsuit and came back out, to show off to her admiring man friend. She held the blue swimsuit up against herself in the red swimsuit. “How do I look?” she asked.
“I can envision you like that in a J. C. Penney’s catalog you look so hot as you are, woman,” he praised her.
“This is the happiest day of my Christian life,” she said.
“The Most High has created you and given you wonderful life, stunning Flaurie,” he said.
“I was lonely in Christ before, but for now on I shall be lonely no longer with you as my boyfriend-in-the-Lord, Flanders,” said Flaurie Keyes.
Now it is time for me to make good my promise, girl,” he said. “I think that I need my little red Radio Flyer wagon and a couple big cardboard boxes.”
“What for?” she asked, curious.
“You get to have my one-piece swimsuits all for yourself,” he said. “Remember my promise to you.”
“I still want them, Flanders,” she said in reverie. “They are all beautiful to have.”
“They’re yours,” he said.
“Now I can have a closet full of women’s maillots,” she said.
It was now sunrise. And they worked together and brought the menagerie to her place. And he and she hung them up in her closet together, man and woman enjoying their rendezvous most endearingly together thus.
“Flanders, I’ve been thinking about Mars this morning,” she said.
“Another planet?” he asked, unsure.
“Mars will never be Venus to me, Flanders. You don’t have to worry about me making a god
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of Mars,” she reassured him. “I am over making false idols out of God’s second heaven. But I think that I will read up some of this fourth planet from the sun in my spare time some day.”
“I heard that Mars has a red sky and that its average surface temperature is fifty degrees below zero Fahrenheit,” he said.
“I didn’t know that,” she said.
“I learned that from astronomy class in college,” he said.
“But most of all I really want to start studying the Holy Bible every day all the time now,” she said.
“The Good Book,” he said. “The Berean Christians searched the Scriptures every day. It says that in Acts 17:11. I, also, want to start doing that, like you and them.”
“And I want to pray every day all the time, too,” she said. “I have so much that I want to thank and praise my Heavenly Father for that I have to tell Him all about it,”
“Praying is better than fellowship,” he said. “We could fill our dates together at your place and at my place with prayer meetings alone–you and I, girl.”
“And we can start going to our Baptist church regularly like we should,” said Flaurie.
“Blessed Hope Baptist Church,” he said. “We both got born again in Baptist churches up north. It is only fitting that we go to our local Baptist church whenever the doors are open so that we can grow in the Lord as children of God.”
“That would make Pastor and Jesus very glad, Flanders,” said Flaurie.
“And you and me, too,” said Flanders.
“I don’t know about you, Flanders, but I am so sleepy now that I cannot keep my eyes open,” she said.
“I need to get some sleep, too,” he said. “Not every man and woman stay up all night together to get right with Christ like we did last night all over the place,” he said.
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“See you tonight, Flanders?” she asked.
“Does sunset sound good to you, Flaurie?” he asked.
“My favorite time of the day,” she said.
“A lot of Bible study. A lot of prayer meeting. A lot of fellowship. A lot of church,” he said.
“A lot of worship to make up for our old sins of idolatry,” she said.
“We are hungry and thirsty for Jesus,” he said.
“And He will fill us up and give us contentment,” she said.
“It is written, ‘But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.’ John 4:14,” recited Flanders Nickels scripture spoken by Christ.
“Again it is written, ‘And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.’ John 6:35,” recited Flaurie Neveu Keyes.
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