The New SSS Blog

Touched - Chapter One

Draft of August 23, 2026

Peter Ladouceur awoke an hour before sunrise. He turned on a dim lamp on his bedside table, pushed the thick comforter off himself, and got out of bed. In the chill of his bedroom he got on his knees and started his daily morning prayers.

He began by meditating, focusing on his breathing, in and out, fifteen or so minutes of centering, making himself ready to speak to God and receive God's word.

As soon as he began, Peter’s concentration on his breathing was interrupted by thoughts breaking into his consciousness, the same thoughts he had been battling the past weeks: Why has God been silent? Has God heard me? Has God heard me and chosen not to respond? Peter noticed these thoughts but tried not to seize on them. He returned his focus to his breathing, following it, in-and-out, in-and-out, emptying his mind.

But again the thoughts intruded. Has God forsaken me? Is God punishing me for my sin? He tried to let these thoughts pass. But they persisted, leading him into a chain: Deborah, his desire, his weakness, his sin, his shame.

“My Lord, my God, I am weak. Show me mercy, give me grace, forgive my offenses, let me live in your light once again.”

Silence. God did not reply. God did not forgive him. From the day of his sin, Peter feared that God had exiled him from the kingdom of righteous.

Peter opened his eyes. In the dim light, his spartan room felt empty, apart. Peter rose to his feet and walked to the kitchen. He shivered, either from the cold or from his fear that forgiveness would never come.

---

The days in Edmonton were getting longer, and the morning sun on this early March day lifted Peter’s mood. He drove from his small house on the west side of the city to the lumber yard and store where he worked, mostly as a wood-worker, but also as a jack-of-all-trades. He enjoyed working his hands and creating objects he knew would be used. He liked his co-workers and made enough to support himself well. He’d been there almost thirteen years, having started when he was twenty.

He arrived at work and parked his Toyota pickup around the back of the yard. Entering the building, Peter enjoyed the familiar smell of lumber and sawdust, an odor he found comforting. Before he could take off his coat, his supervisor Ron approached.

“The boss wants to see you.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed.

“It’s all good. No worries.”

Peter walked to the employees’ room, put his coat in his locker, and headed to the boss’s office, on a mezzanine overlooking the store. Melanie, the boss’s assistant, stood up from her desk as she saw Peter reach the top of the stairs. As usual, Peter thought, she had on too much makeup and wore a too-revealing tight-fighting dress, showing too much of her breasts and legs and indecently accentuating the roundness of her stomach and hips. Despite her immodesty, Peter had always liked her. She was clever and had a warm, genuine personality that drew Peter in despite her provocative appearance.

“Hi Peter. He’s waiting for you. Follow me.”

They walked down a short hallway. Melanie knocked on a half-open door and stuck her head into the office. “Hi boss. Peter’s here.”

Bob Skelton was a short fifty-year-old with a prominent beer belly and male pattern baldness, whose face nevertheless managed to convey an impish boyish handsomeness. He stood up from his desk as Peter entered the room.

“Peter! Peter! Good to see you. Have a seat.”

They shook hands and Peter sat.

“Ron told me yesterday that he’s leaving us to manage a lumberyard in Calgary.”

Peter was sorry to hear this. Ron was a good guy, fair and easy to work for.

“If you’re willing,” Bob continued, “I’d like you to take his place. It’s a good bump in salary and will give you management experience. You’re a good worker and have the potential to move up. No need to respond now. Take a few days and think about it. I think you’d do well.”

“Thank you, I didn’t expect this. Not at all. I appreciate your confidence in me. I like working here, I always have. I’ll think it over and let you know. By Friday, is that OK?”

“That’s fine. Ron’s here for another three weeks.”

Bob stood and reached out his hand. Peter stood and took it.

“I hope you’ll say yes,” Bob said. “You’re a good fit.”

They shook hands. “Thank you again,” Peter said, and left the office.

Melanie smiled and winked at Peter as he walked down the stairs to return to his post. She must have known, Peter thought, and that made him smile.

On his way, his phone chimed: a text from Deborah: “It’s been a while. Lunch today maybe? I’ll buy. The Lunchbox at 12:30? Let me know, it would be good to talk.”

Peter stopped, his mind flooded by contradictory thoughts. Warmth. Deborah’s eyes, Deborah’s smile. Her laugh. The way she made him laugh. The color of her hair and skin. Affection. Attraction. Desire. Danger. Sin.

Today of all days.

He had distanced himself from Deborah since their last meeting – their last date, if he was being honest – a few weeks ago. She’d called twice and he hadn’t picked up. She’d texted a few times and he’d replied with short, neutral messages devoid of emotion. Peter knew it wasn’t fair, knew he needed to address the situation. What, he thought to himself, was the right thing, the Christian thing, to do?

He replied to her text. “Yes. The Lunchbox at 12:30 is good. See you there.” Then a second: “Thank you.”

---

When Peter looked up from his phone, Ron was right in front of him, a big smile on his face.

“You talked to Bob, so you know,” Ron said. “Congratulations, man. I’m happy for you.”

Ron was a large, burly man with dark brown eyes, a long beard, and a wild mustache. All his hobbies were outdoors, and in his red and black checked flannel shirt he looked like the archetypical lumberjack.

“Thanks. I’m going to think it over, though. I like what I do now.”

“Yeah, but you can still do the things you really want to do. And the money makes it worth the hassles.”

“What are the hassles?”

“Management stuff, HR bullshit, having to come down on guys slacking off. That’s the worst. The paperwork sucks but it gets routine. You could do it better than me. You know I get a little wound up sometimes.”

Peter had seen it, Ron yelling and cursing at someone who’d screwed up. Not in the manager’s manual, but effective.

“You’re OK,” Peter said. “Always fair. That’s the main thing.”

“See, you’re a natural.”

Peter chuckled and headed to his station. He had two custom doors to finish before the end of the day, and had already lost an hour.

---

Absorbed in his work, Peter almost forgot his lunch with Deborah, managing to arrive just a few minutes late.

Deborah was sitting at a table along the wall to the left. At first she didn’t see him, and for a moment Peter just took her in. Not since he was a very young man had he found a woman so attractive. He didn’t know why. She wasn’t unattractive, but there was nothing particularly remarkable about her physically. Yet there was something about her essence, Peter thought, about the all-of-her-together, that pulled him to her. Strongly. Scarily.

Even now Peter felt the warmth of desire rising, a disturbing mix of wanting to protect and to possess, to keep safe and to take, to care for and to consume. Thoughts sweet and sublime, base and mean, divine and profane.

He might have stood there for some time had Deborah not looked up and spotted him. She waved shyly and Peter made his way to her table.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m glad you came.”

Deborah was wearing a blue sweater and light pants. She was a light-complected, blue-eyed blonde, as befitting her Norwegian heritage. She’d just come from a framing shop downtown where she worked. She and Peter had joked that they were both in the woodworking business.

“We should order soon,” Deborah continued, “I’ve got to be back right at two.”

Peter scanned the menu and the waitress came and took their orders.

“I haven’t heard from you much in the past few weeks,” Deborah said. “That’s surprising since our last few dates were really nice.”

Peter liked Deborah’s straightforwardness.

“They were nice,” Peter replied. “Too nice, maybe.”

Deborah was puzzled. “How can a date be too nice?”

Peter had to have this conversation, even though he didn’t want to. He hoped that Deborah, a Christian like himself, would understand.

“I’m going to be honest. I’ve thought about you a lot the last few weeks. But some of those thoughts have been … impure.”

“You’re not the only one,” Deborah teased.

Peter’s face reddened. Was she mocking him? He couldn’t imagine she was.

“Not only thoughts, but actions, too,” he continued. “Unworthy actions. Sinful actions. Things that should not be done.”

It took a few beats for Deborah to understand, but when she did, her face softened. “I’m not a pastor, or a student of the Bible,” she said soothingly, “but I think that God made men and women to be attracted to one another. You’re attracted to me, aren’t you?”

Peter nodded sheepishly.

“I’m attracted to you, too. Attraction between men and women is not just emotional, it’s physical, too. That’s the way God made us. God wants us to be happy, he wants men and women to live together as couples, and physical desire is part of that. So I don’t think you’re a sinner because you have those kinds of feelings for me. I think God wants you to have those feelings.”

For an instant, Peter wondered whether this was a test, a woman tempting him into sin, like Eve in the Garden of Eden. But Deborah was not a temptress. Was she?

“But my actions, what I did ….” Peter’s face burned as he remembered touching himself, thinking of Deborah, the intensity of his climax.

“God gave us that, too,” Deborah replied. “Back in biblical times, when so many children died before they grew up, maybe it was important not to … well, you know … but things are different now. I don’t know if you sinned, but if you did, I think God has forgiven you. As you should forgive yourself. If our attraction was purely … well, sexual, that would be one thing. But it’s more than that. Don’t deny yourself – and me – the possibility of a relationship that could be very good.”

At that moment the waitress came with drinks, leading to a period of silence, which Deborah finally broke.

“Forgive me if I’ve said too much, or been too direct. But I like you and hope we keep seeing each other. I’d be sad if we didn’t. I mean, how often do you meet a female wordworker?”

Peter smiled. He was still churning inside, but he recognized that Deborah had handled a difficult situation with ease and grace. He felt even closer to her now. He wanted to see more of her.

“Maybe you’re right. An attractive woodworker is hard to find.” Peter said.

Deborah lifted her glass of iced tea. “Amen,” she said, “I’ll drink to that.”

---

Peter arose an hour before sunrise. He turned on a dim lamp on his bedside table, pushed the thick comforter off himself, and got out of bed. In the chill of his bedroom he got on his knees and started his daily morning prayers.

Today his meditation was not interrupted by disturbing thoughts. His mind remained clear and empty as he followed his breath, in and out.

Suddenly he felt a light pressure, a tingling, at the top of his spinal cord, a wispy, gentle touch. The pressure-tingling-touch began to move slowly down his spine. As it did, he felt the pressure-tingling-touch move outward through every nerve pathway, outward to the end, splitting at each fork where the nerve branched, then reversing, flowing through the nerves back to his spine. Down and out to his shoulders and back, then down to his his arms, into the hands and fingers and back, down and out to the surface the torso and back, to each organ inside his torso, down and out to skin, then further down each leg, simultaneously, through his legs, thighs, hamstrings, calves, down to the feet, to end of each toe, and back again.

A there-and-back traversal of his entire nervous system, excepting his brain.

Peter had experienced unusual bodily sensations before while meditating, but nothing as sustained and definite as this. This was not an imagined sensation, this was something actually there, a physical presence inside his nerves. He was not frightened. He found it pleasurable, like a gentle massage.

The pressure-tingling-touch had moved again to the top of Peter's spinal cord. Peter sensed it moving upward.

Peter lost his human consciousness.

Base impulses, like emotions but more primitive, pulsed through him like electric shocks, his inner eye watching images more real than any memory could produce. Terror. Fear. Enormous claws grasping at him. Sharp beaks about to tear into his flesh. Fangs in the open mouth of a snake closing on him. Pain from teeth gnawing on his leg, eating his flesh. The dark, dangerous eyes and mouths and claws of every sort of predator, flying, running, crawling. A gangrenous paw, a mouth carrying him by his fur. Falling from the sky and dropping into a nest of small beaks tearing him apart. An unyielding cold. Violent shivers. Hunger as he’d never felt it before, a thirst so deep it shriveled his cells. The abject terror of being separated from his kind, alone, vulnerable, awaiting death.

Then: Sun and warmth. Sleeping with his kind. Milk from his mother’s teat. The creamy taste of nuts. The sweetness of ripe fruit. The succulent, heavy taste of just-killed flesh. Blood on his lips. Satiation. Drowsiness and sleep. The irresistible smell of the female. Blind, unchained desire, desperation. Pressure, fur on fur, taking, mounting. Absolute release. Absolute pleasure.

For a tiny instant, Peter was back in a semi-conscious state.

Which broke into a thousand pieces. Peter floated in an ocean of abstractions and metaphors. Unknown symbols. Unknown words and ideas, flowing apart and rejoining, indecipherable essences below language or thought.

The pressure then moved upward, into, through, and around the structures of the brain, moving from the oldest, most primitive, to the newest: first the hindbrain, the medulla, the pons, the reticular formation; then into the midbrain and the cerebellum; the limbic system – thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus; and finally into and around the cerebral cortex and its frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes.

With this journey, Peter’s consciousness grew but changed constantly. Its scope and quality, its level of connection with ordinary reality, ebbed and flowed. Foreign ancient ideas, concepts, and languages surged and retreated. Peter had no way to capture these states of consciousness and no way to think about them. He was both inside them and outside them, experiencing and mindlessly observing.

The pressure moved into Peter’s ears, and a cacophony of sounds erupted, bits and pieces and strings, every sound possible to hear produced and processed in a brief instant. Peter didn’t have the ability to process this blast, which was fortunate, as it would have overwhelmed his ordinary consciousness.

Peter’s eyes were next, and in his mind he saw the sight equivalent of what his mind had just heard. Every color, every range of light and darkness, every object subject to visual resolution, whirled through Peter’s mind.

The same for each sense: A rush of every smell imaginable, some of which never existed in Peter’s actual world. The same for tastes, and touches. Then catalogues of other, deeper senses. The vagus nerve, nerves monitoring digestion, heartbeat, breathing, position in space, returns from senses normally handled by the unconscious. A journey through alien territory. Peter experienced this all in a state below consciousness yet above unconsciousness. He perceived but did not observe. He did not try to understand. He simply passed through.

At last Peter reentered consciousness. But it was not the narrow consciousness of ordinary life. His was now a broad, open consciousness, one seemingly able to take in the entire world, the entire universe, and hold it inside. A great peace settled on Peter. All was right, proper, as it should be. His heart was light and joyful. He felt a satisfaction, a belonging, he’d never felt before, a connection to everything that is. A bliss. A rapture.

Then Peter was back in his chilly bedroom, on his knees next to his bed, his mind normal once again.

Peter thought about what he’d experienced. He knew what had happened. He was certain of it in a way he’d never been before.

He had been touched by God.