Introduction
No wonder preachers are alarmed about the devil's winning of people's souls. Just count all the tools with which he is working.
Idle hands produced by increased leisure time either from shorter work weeks or employment layoffs prompted by the economic recession; crime rates are soaring. Frustration and disappointment in a person's day-to-day routine-and he or she look elsewhere for excitement and fulfillment. Boredom and isolation from intellectually invigorating situations and people. Impatience with the status quo and recognizing mentally dulling tasks are unalterable.
These are only a few examples of what can drive relatively normal people "up the wall" and lead them to behavior not accepted as normal, into aberrations. Sometimes there is a morning-after shame and sense of guilt. But often people shrug off twinges of conscience, even revel in the memories of exciting sensations and dream of the next opportunity for tingling adventures and new experiences that will dispel, for a time, the humdrum of daily routine.
These are the people who let or make their sexual fantasies become stark reality. And to achieve their own lustful gratifications, they maneuver others into their arms and their beds.
Some of their partners come open-eyed and willingly; others are sort of trapped or lulled into cooperation with sexually aggressive men and women.
Desperate times, such as natural disasters, make some people easy prey for those with sexually warped minds. They succumb easily to lewd touches and embraces of men and women, often letting their bodies become available to sex-starved people who climb on them, their bodies between others' naked thighs.
In Nola's case, perhaps, her venting of passions with other women and young boys and men could be explained by saying she was disappointed in the quirks of a man she cared for and dreamed of marrying.
Perhaps Terry was the victim of sex cravings rooted deep in her childhood. Young boys were her meat.
And how normal or abnormal is Corbie? She thrived on sex whenever and however she could get it. But she thrilled most when she had a voluptuous young woman naked in her arms.
At any rate, sex, normal and abnormal, will be practiced by any and all when circumstances and opportunities are just right.
We have here such a group of people, living and working closely together in a private school. And we have their anxieties and involvement when a forest fire strikes in Utah.
And when it is all over, some may be injured mentally by what they have done; others may shuffle off their feelings of shame and continue living as though nothing much had happened. And others may use the situation to affect a turning point in their lives.
Whatever damage may have been done at the time, it is human nature and spirit to build new and better lives.
-The Publisher