*Note to readers: This story is not about religion nor is it anti-religious. It is sexual with an interracial theme. However, the main characters experience a loss of religious faith making this whole thing possible. If you find this sort of thing offensive, this may not be a story you'll enjoy.
And yes, the timeline is unrealistically short for this to happen in real life, but for a story like this, it pretty much has to be.
If you still want to keep reading but don't understand Mormonism, then you may want to read the background information so you can make sense of the battle raging in the minds of the main characters, please read the background info. If not, just skip ahead to the double lines below and enjoy.
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Personal Info:
I'm not anti-religious. I don't take offense at a prayer before a high school football game or go nuts when I see a religious display on public property. I just see no evidence for the existence of God. That said, I respect people of faith (even though I largely disagree with them) as long as they don't advocate physical violence like Muslim jihadists.
Whenever I include a religious theme in a story, I tend to get one of two kinds of comments. The first is the kind that tell me I'm being 'preachy.' That's never been my intent. Since I don't believe in any religion, I'm most definitely not 'preaching.' You just can't tell this kind of story without exploring the religious person's mindset and Mormons are unique brand of religious people.
Considering the hundreds of millions of people on earth who are religious around the world, and coupling that with human nature, the kinds of things I write about are undoubtedly a very common occurrence wherein temptations overcome faith. I know this to be true from personal experience as I shared in Bagging Lauren. I had an affair with a married Mormon woman when I was just 18 and a senior in high school. So at least some of this is based on personal experience.
People have sexual needs. Period. Religion tries to represses all of them except inside the confines of marriage and even there, some things are frowned upon (like anal sex.) That can often cause a battle to rage internally and to those dealing with it, it is very real and to them, very serious. Thinking about doing things a secular person would never see as a serious moral issue can create so much internal conflict for a deeply religious person, that person can find him or herself living in a kind of hell on earth attempting to keep forbidden desires in check.
I had a good friend in high school who was a Mormon and we spent a lot of time together. He once told me how a married woman in his local congregation, or 'ward' in Mormon-speak, pursued their married bishop until he moved himself and his family to another state. She then divorced her husband, followed the former bishop to the new state, and then pursued him there until he finally gave in and had an affair with her resulting in his own divorce leaving his three children without their dad. This stuff happens and it happens more often than we think in every denomination.
In addition to my Mormon friend, I once dated a Mormon girl for over a year. I learned a lot about that religion from them and my friend's parents and find Mormonism fascinating for many reasons.
The second kind of comment always makes me laugh. The people making them take issue with the 'blasphemy' in my stories. Ironically, the people making the comments come here, read stories about sexual encounters which include adultery and fornication, homosexuality, or transsexuals (no problem there), but take great offense at someone in the throes of ecstasy saying, "Oh, God" or "Jesus Christ!" Maybe they should be in church or at confession instead of reading scintillating stories.
Background on Mormomism:
As to Mormonism specifically, it teaches its people they must "keep the commandments" in order to be "exalted" in the next life. For men, being exalted means to become a God while his wife (or wives) can become Goddess(es). Mormons believe we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother, who, by the way, who were once humans like us. They kept the commandments and were exalted to godhood. Oh, and they have Heavenly Fathers and Mothers ad infinitum. Bizarre, right? Exaltation can only happen by being married in a Mormon temple for "all time and eternity." Oh, and you have to live faithfully and endure to the end after getting married in a temple or you still won't make it to exaltation. Talk about a setup or a recipe for disaster!
Breaking any of the commandments like drinking alcohol or even coffee or tea, means you can't go to the Mormon temple. If you can't go to the temple, you can't become a God or Goddess. So if having a cup of coffee is that serious, you can imagine how bad it is if you commit adultery or even fornication. You can be excommunicated from the church and for committed Mormons, that's a fate worse than death.
One can often tell there's some kind of problem if a Mormon doesn't "take the sacrament" several weeks in a row. The sacrament (blessed bread and water) are offered every single Sunday and Mormons aren't supposed to take it if they have 'sin' in their lives. Not taking it once every now and then isn't uncommon. More than that makes people start wondering and inevitably... talking. Some call that—gossip.
So what can a good Mormon man or woman do who has uncontrollable, overwhelming urges to do certain, forbidden things? Pray for strength, suffer in silence, or risk being excommunicated. (Gay Mormons—or gay people of any faith—know exactly what I'm talking about, but this story isn't about being gay.)
So please forgive my being 'preachy' even though I'm most definitely not preaching. It's just that no one can understand the seriousness of these 'sins' unless one understands the Mormon mindset.
With that in mind, let's go inside the minds of our main characters, Oliver and Jenna Porter, who live in the greater Seattle, Washington area (where I grew up), as do tens of thousands of other Latter-day Saints, many of whom struggle with similar issues at various times in their lives.
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"It was so good to see Elder Jacobs back from his mission today, wasn't it, honey?" Oliver Porter asked his wife after sacrament meeting.
"I know! Two years is a long time to be away from home when you're just 19, but I know Heavenly Father blesses them for doing His will. Any idea what he plans to do?"
"Go to BYU and get married, I guess. What else to returned missionaries do?" he joked. Okay, he wasn't really joking because that's what a very large percentage of these young men did. Not getting married right away could be very dangerous as the urge to procreate is very strong and sex is only allowed within marriage so why not go to a school where nearly everyone is LDS and find a wife? And the sooner the better.
Later that evening, after dinner, Oliver Porter asked his wife another question. "Sweetheart? Is everything okay?"
"Sure. Why wouldn't it be, honey?" she asked him.
"Well, I couldn't help but notice you didn't take the sacrament again today."
"Oh," she said as though he'd just reminded her of something she'd forgotten about. "No, it's not a big deal. I've just been struggling with some things recently. Nothing to worry about."
