Polite denial

She stepped forward, looking up at him.

"We would never even consider doing that," she refuted gently, her eyes firm. "Not today, tomorrow, or the next. We don't live up to your presumptions or words, or whatever it is you spout. Unlike you, we can exercise moderation with each other." She looked at them one by one, then back to Dale. "Maybe for you and your friends, such activities are a fun recreational pastime. But as stated in 1 Paul 2:11, 'Dear friends, I urge you to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.'"

"Oh yeah?" Dale pointed at her, aggravated. "Then what do you guys do afterward, huh?"

"Board games. Restaurants." Down the list she checked off, even as they were already running out. "Parks."

Dale scoffed. "Figures. What bores."

Grace only maintained her steely stare, pressing her Bible tight against her.

Timely, a blonde guy clapped Dale's shoulder.

"Let's go, Dale." He nodded his head as a large, thick-armed black fellow appeared at his other.

"Coach is gonna chew us out for being late again, man."

Dale looked at the two. Then, relenting, he fixed one final stare at Grace and turned to leave. As he walked, his pals chided him for his stubbornness; he hadn't gotten over Grace's rejection after all this time, and everyone knew it. But for the latter, that was all in the past -- along with many other men's advances. She'd learned to refrain from getting too friendly over time. Too often guys only got the wrong idea.

Turning back to the library, she stepped inside.

Once she was in, the steadfast co-ed got to work. She set her Bible down by a chair and began peeling off her sweater. Next was her more than modest pants. She unzipped them and slipped the jeans over her shoes, bending down, then folded them neatly by her equally neat sweater. A couple passed by, whispering to each other as she picked her Bible back up, along with her clothes, and approached the front desk. When the girl at the desk saw her walking up, her eyes shot up.

"Um, sorry," she began, "but you can't..."

"Bible study group," Grace clarified. At the explanation, the girl breathed a sigh of understanding, expressed her acknowledgement, and took Grace's clothes for her. She assured her that she would hold on to them until she and her group were done. Grace offered thanks and left for her table -- they said they would be in the study-room in the second floor, two doors from the elevator.

She made it to the stairs and proceeded upward, giving her a quantifiable view of the interior as the cool air-conditioned air pushed goosebumps onto her extensively exposed skin.

Several other people were around, hunched over splayed out books, quizzing one another, rooted to their computers, and so on. At the far end, a girl and a guy were making out in one of the aisles, as if it was the back of their car. Grace sheepishly averted her eyes.

How inappropriate.

When she finally made it to the room, she knocked and opened the door. Her fellow study-mates were all gathered there.

"Grace!" chimed a redheaded woman with hair cropped over her shoulders and piercing blue eyes.

"Hi Savannah," Grace took the chair next to her and gave her a quick, warm hug. Her hand went over her friend's V-neck dress, which plunged down to just the top of her navel. The bottom hemline, short enough as it was, was further hiked up her criss-crossed legs, exposing the redhead's lacy panties.

"Hey Grace," looked over Harris, a gentlemanly looking young man who only had on a tie and beach shorts and nothing else. He was the only one of the group standing, his finger situated on a whiteboard. "Oh, you're only wearing your underwear."

"Did you forget your clothes?" asked Belle, a starkly pretty brunette in a Playboy bunny outfit, a notebook laid out in front of her.

Looking down, Grace nodded. "My apologies," her delicate voice expunged.

The other man of the group waved a hand. "Oh don't worry about it," he reassured, a finger dawdling with his fully unbuttoned dress shirt as he shifted a certain protrusion in his extremely tight, gold yellow hotpants. "Happened to all of us at least once."

"And by us you mean you, Ted," Harris flat-toned. The rest of the group laughed. Grace tried to relax a little, too, as Savannah sat back and stretched, letting her dress fall a little further down her hiked up thighs as she did.

"You could always have just pulled your sweater up over your chest, or cut off your jeans to show more of your legs," suggested Belle.

"Hey don't sweat it, Grace, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. Besides, I think your underwear really accentuates you even more," she evaluated her attire showily. "I'm sure when men pass by, they'll be able to see your fruits as clear as day. Maybe you should make that your new Bible study outfit from now on?'

Grace just offered a small smile. She appreciated her friend's attempt to comfort her. It wasn't so bad of a point, too. It beat constantly keeping other articles of clothes on reserve. But in the same time, she wasn't sure... she wasn't sure if she was an underwear kind of girl.

A frown sprinkled her brow, like there was something, or more than something, wrong with that sentiment, then it whisked away.

"Alright guys," Harris clapped his hands, "now that Grace is here we could get started. You all have your Bibles, do you?"

One chorus of 'yes' later and things were kicked off. Harris began coordinating the session. Grace listened intently, as did the others. After the Bible review, there was usually a candid discussion, which Grace found as the highlights of past meetings -- even if she mostly just observed, or piped in every other sentence. After all, it was when you could unload and share testimonies and connect the rites of testaments both old and new to the modern woes of the world, all with each other, in the comfort of good company.

She felt warm inside, glad that she was back in a place she could call home, with friends that weren't endlessly spouting vulgarities from their mouths or acting like sex-crazed prowlers and Philistines.

A slight shiver went through her body as her thighs rested against the cold wood of the chair below her, and she quietly adjusted her panties.