Marcia went on, "This doesn't make sense. Our family is a good Christian family. We go to the same church you do. It is a sin to have sex outside of marriage. While my mother has always answered any questions I have had about sex, she nonetheless has always stressed that I must not have sex until I am married. So either what you are telling me are lies, or what my mother has been telling me are. Guess who I am more likely to believe?" Marcia finished off angrily.
From the look on Lady Jennifer's face it was clear she did not like the direction this conversation was going in. While she has had similar reactions from some of her initiates, none had taken it this badly. 'Being blunt may not have been the right course' she thought.
"Marcia, you need to calm down for a second. You are allowing your fears and prejudices to hold sway with you. I am not asking you to redefine who you believe your mother to be. If you trust your mother, and have faith in your parents, then maybe what you should be redefining is what it means to be spanked, and have sex with someone other than your spouse."
Lady Jennifer gave Marcia a few moments to think about what she just said, then continued, "Your reaction goes to the heart of why we keep the sexual aspects of our kingdom secret. As a child you can never fully understand adult sexual relationships. More importantly, you could never explain them properly to Child Protection Services, so out of fear of having our children taken from us, we must keep this aspect of our lives secret from you.
"You see, conservative Christians hate us because we don't believe in monogamy, and liberal feminists hate us because we believe women should be deeply and profoundly submissive to men. You must realize that no one is on our side. In order to protect you, to keep you from being taken from us, it was important that you grow up unaware of what is going on. That is the most important reason why there is such secrecy within our kingdom. So whenever we engaged in our sexual activities, you and the other children would be at someone else's house so there would be no chance of any of you seeing anything."
Some of what Lady Jennifer was saying did match up with what Marcia remembered growing up. The kids from many families were often left with one couple or another so the rest of the parents could go out together. Instead of staying home watching TV, the children were always brought together to play, and socialize, with adult supervision. She remembered all of the good times playing with the kids, and didn't give much thought to what the parents might be doing.
Marcia thought some more, then said "That may well explain the secrecy part, but what about it being a sin. I'm a Christian. That means sex with someone other than your spouse is a sin. I thought you and my mother were Christians too, but I guess I was wrong."
When Lady Jennifer replied it wasn't in anger, but it was pretty close. "Since you're just a child, with childish notions of religion, I'll let your judgment of my beliefs pass for now. Since you seem to know everything about what it means to be a Christian, how about answering a few simple questions. First, what was Christ's religion?"
Marcia, feeling slightly chastised and unsure of where this was going, replied, "He was Jewish."
"Very good. Many people say he was a Christian, but Jesus did not set out to start a new religion. With that in mind, did he eat pork?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because it wasn't kosher."
"Do you eat pork?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I guess it's because I am not Jewish."
"So Marcia, how does a religion go from prohibiting the eating of pork to it being OK now? Did Christ tell his disciples that they no longer had to eat kosher?"
Marcia was clearly perplexed by this. She had friends who were Jewish, so she knew all about their customs and beliefs. She also knew that Christ was a Jew, but never made the connection as to why she did not eat kosher. Finally she just shook her head and replied, "I don't know. I have no idea why that should be."
"Before I explain this to you, I believe you should think about how you feel right now. About how you are not so sure about your religious beliefs, and why you believe the things you do. You see, by the end of today you are going to be bombarded with ideas and experiences you have never considered. So making vast pronouncements about what you believe, let alone, what others believe, will not serve you well.
"So Marcia, are you going to keep an open mind about this?"
Marcia nodded timidly, now thoroughly chastised.
"Good. Roughly translated, kosher means 'fit to eat.' Nothing more. Before there was a proper scientific method to determine what to eat, and how to prepare it, early man used religion to accomplish this. This wasn't unique to the Jews; all early civilizations used religion to determine what was 'fit to eat.'
"It's pretty easy to see how pork ended up on the prohibited list because of the disease we now call trichinosis. The early Jews saw people prepare pork in the same manner for beef, yet some who ate it ended up dying a particularly nasty death. These early Jews just chalked it up as God not wanting people to eat pork, and He was willing to kill you if you did. Hence, eating pork became prohibited.
"Having eccentric eating requirements was not a problem for Jews because they had no desire to see their religion spread. The early Christians were different — still are for that matter. It was very important for them to see their faith spread from land to land, but early on, they ran into a problem of getting other cultures to eat kosher — circumcision did not go over very well either. These Christians finally decided that is was more important to get others to accept Christ as their savior than it was to get them to change what and how they ate. Put simply, they decided to use reason, and not religion, to determine what was 'fit to eat.'
"In much the same way, we of this kingdom have decided to use reason, and not religion, to determine what proper sexual conduct is. For primitive, or simplistic minds, limiting sex to just those who are married made sense as a way to deal with sexually transmitted diseases, or unwanted pregnancies. Yet we see this as practical as dealing with the problems of auto accidents by requiring you to drive on roads that no one else is on. Sure it will work, but it's not very realistic, because it doesn't fit in the world we live in. For religious people to look at the problem of pedophile priests, and evangelists having sex with hookers, and say religion is an effective means to govern sexual conduct, is absurd."
Lady Jennifer paused for a few moments, then spoke some words that Marcia couldn't believe. "There is something that I have been dancing around that will only get more difficult to avoid as we go along. I think what is important is that you experience something that will help you understand much of what I will tell you later. It's now time that I get you over my lap for a spanking." And as Lady Jennifer said this she seemed to have produced a paddle out of nowhere.
Both the words Marcia heard, and the paddle she saw, slammed into her like a brick, and made breathing quite difficult for her. The paddle she saw was like a ping-pong paddle, but the paddle part was narrower. Then she noticed another difference. The handle was longer, and had a rounded end, much like the vibrator she kept hidden under bed.
This was getting to be too much for Marcia. She was frozen in her spot, and could barely sputter out "But… but why?"
"There's no way I can explain why," said Lady Jennifer. She then went into an analogy she has told prior to getting every new girl across her lap. "How well do you think you could describe something as simple as rain? Imagine yourself standing in a warm summer rain; think carefully about how that would feel. Then pretend that I am someone who grew up in the Sahara desert; I'm someone who has never experienced rain. How well could you use the language you have at your disposal to describe that feeling well enough that when I finally found myself in a warm summer rain, I would be able to say that what you described is exactly what I experienced? Could you do that?"
Marcia thought for a few moments, but eventually she had to shake her head no.
Lady Jennifer continued, "That's the problem with words. They really are quite inadequate to describe, or represent, much of what we encounter in life, yet civilized society puts a great deal of importance in them. Sometimes all you can do is just trust others who have gone before you. Sometimes you have to do as they say, and hope understanding will follow."
Lady Jennifer let that sink in a little, then went on "I still have a couple more things to say, but I think they are best said with you over my lap, so come on, lean over." She passed the paddle from her left hand to her right then patted her left thigh as an invitation for Marcia.
Marcia still couldn't move. She was completely torn between her desire to please Lady Jennifer, and doing something that was so totally alien to her. Her parents spanked her when she was very young, so being spanked was not something she had never experienced. Yet her parents made it clear to her that spanking children was only permitted in the kingdom when the child directly disobeyed the parents, never just for doing something wrong. Since she had not done anything wrong, let alone directly disobeyed Lady Jennifer, she could not fathom why this was happening. The pull between lying across Lady Jennifer's lap, and bolting from her bedroom was so great, it left her frozen where she was.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/2plj45/next_generation_christian_kingdom_ch01_marcias