*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."
"You sure? I mean, I'm not trying to keep track, but I know that's at least the fourth time in the last several months. Is there anything you'd like to talk about?"
Jenna had been born and raised in The Church and knew the husband was the head of the family. After all, he held the Holy Melchizedek priesthood and he would 'call her through the vail into the celestial kingdom by the sacred new name she was given in the temple.' Even so, this was something she was just going to have to work through on her own. It had started in college and had kept rearing its ugly head every so often since.
She thought it was behind her for good after meeting Oliver when he was just back from his own two-year mission to Brazil two years ago. He was so handsome and such a great guy. She was in her senior year while he was a sophomore (he'd gone to school for a year before being called on his mission) as did many young Mormon men.
Of all the guys she'd dated, she knew immediately he was the one. He was everything she'd ever been raised to want in a husband and she was thrilled to think she'd be able to spend eternity married to this wonderful man. When he wanted to transfer from Brigham Young University to the University of Washington in Seattle to be closer to his family, she'd been happy to go with him. She even loved working to support him while he finished his BA. But she didn't love dealing with...this.
About four months ago, those same hideous, relentless...thoughts, those...urges...came back again. She was so angry! She'd done her best to live faithfully and keep the commandments. She gone to the temple and married her husband. Why wouldn't Heavenly Father take these awful desires away from her? She'd prayed and prayed and prayed. She'd even fasted and prayed begging Him to take them urges away and yet they remained. And lately they were growing stronger. Why did they continue to interrupt her otherwise perfect life? Why couldn't she stop thinking about this?
That evening she decided she would talk to the bishop during the week. She would lay all of this out, tell him exactly what was troubling her, and seek his wise counsel. While Mormon bishops didn't forgive sins like Catholic priests, some things just had to be confessed and this was getting to the point where it was one of them. It had to be dealt with.
That night, Jenna wanted Oliver in the worst way, and he was all too happy to oblige her. Sometimes, when she was like this, he wasn't sure whether to be grateful or concerned that he'd been a wife with such a ferocious sexual appetite. He knew that as long as they were married, there was nothing they could do together that was wrong—as long as it was consensual and involved only the two of them, of course.
Oliver was worn out when she was finally finished with him. She wanted him twice and her...needs...were such that having sex was often a very time-consuming event. Having it twice was a kind of marathon. All in all, he was thankful he didn't have the kinds of problems his male friends at church often hinted about where they went many days or even weeks without sex. And with their wives, anything but intercourse was out of the question. Not for Jenna. There was nothing she didn't like or want—often. So Oliver decided to count his blessings and not complain when it was a little after midnight before he finally got to sleep. Even after all that, Jenna was as unsatisfied as ever. No amount of anything with Oliver could meet her needs. Or were they even needs? It was more likely these were just evil desires placed there by the Adversary and she was going to have to prove her worthiness by conquering them. Telling her husband about them was unconscionable. But what if they wouldn't go away? What would she do then? That was a question with which she wasn't prepared to grapple. She silently prayed her bishop would have the wisdom to help put this behind her once and for all.
While Jenna wrestled with her own personal demons, Oliver was battling his own. The one thing he couldn't tell her was the doubts he'd been having since the second year of his mission. He wrestled with them every day since and lately they were tearing him apart. On the one hand, The Church had to be true. Joseph Smith had to be a prophet of God. The Book of Mormon had to be the word of God. And God had to hear and answer our prayers...didn't He? And yet on the other hand, his mother had died of cancer while he was on his mission in spite of the thousands of prayers from hundreds of people. She not only never recovered, she steadily declined and she was in so much pain that death became a sweet release. "She's in a better place" or "His ways are higher than our ways," is what everyone, to include his dad, kept telling him. He was too tired to think it through yet again as he drifted off to sleep.
"Sister Porter! It's so good to see you. Come on in."
She just loved Bishop Calvert. He was such a godly man with a truly wonderful family. It was no accident he'd been called to serve as her bishop at a time when she really needed him.
"Please. Have a seat," he told her as he sat down behind his desk. Like her, he'd taken off an extra hour from work after lunch to meet with her as there is no paid clergy in the Mormon Church. They are all laymen who hold other full-time jobs.
"So how's that new job of yours going, Jenna? Do you like it so far?"
"I really do, Bishop. I've never worked in a bank before and there's always something new to learn. And I really like the people."
