I am a child of God and you're a fuckface.

I wanted to punch him in the ladder day saint face. Here I sat, with a man I’d met over a year ago through an anonymous online forum after I’d posted an ad requesting that someone role play with me as my bishop. I’d always had a thing for authority figures and thought I’d try out the one that is creepily allowed to listen to all your dirty secrets. I never imagined that he was a practicing member or held any semblance legitimate faith. My bad.

By 13 years old I'd known that Jesus could not possibly love me. How could ANYONE love me when I couldn’t summon the willpower to keep my hand out of my own pants. I hadn’t even made it to high school and I was already a diehard masturbator destined to burn for all eternity. So I took my unworthy and self pleasuring soul down to my bishop’s office to unburden myself. There I sat, across from a white haired grandpa, sharing the secret of all secrets. I told him that it touched myself daily, that I had pornographic thoughts, and that the guilt was eating me alive. I had hoped that going through the motions would’ve eased the self loathing but all I thought was what I would’ve given to have his job

The only other time I saw him again was when I lost the privilege of toilet paper. At that time in my life I was not only carnal, I was also lazy. My mother on the other hand, was nuts. The final straw was the last time I’d chosen to not replace the toilet paper roll. I had used the last few sheets, leaned over to open a new roll and when finished, simply placed it on top of the old empty cardboard tube. I never fully understood what the big deal was especially since technically, the toilet paper was in the exact same spot. To mother it might as well have been the apocalypse. Because of my insidious act she proceeded to clear our entire house of all paper products. We no longer had access to toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, Kleenex or dryer sheets. Since we’d so clearly demonstrated a lack of respect for her home and her efforts to provide for us, it was her duty to remind us how much of a privilege toiletries truly were. So I did what any other paperless pre teen would do…I stole some from church.

Really though, can you blame me? It had been days that I’d been blotting myself with hand towels and waiting to shit until I got to school. I had gone to the church house for some weekly activity, seen that glorious, industrial sized roll of cleanliness…and ran. I actually took three of them and STILL thank the lord for making it home without anyone having seen me. I tip toed inside and hid them under my bed. Eventually I gave a roll to my sister and we carefully made pit stops in our rooms before heading to the bathroom.

Unfortunately another common punishment at the time would come about when we’d forget to do our dishes. Ma would proceed to hide those dishes under our beds in hopes that our rooms would start to stink. And so it happened after dinner one night that my sister and I worked to build a hut in our yard, BEFORE we’d done our dishes. I was collecting weeds for the roof and suddenly my mother came bolting out of the house with three almost full rolls of commercial toilet paper.

“FUCK!” I thought.

I could see the veins pulsating in her neck from 20 feet away. She seethed over to me but didn’t say a word. Silence was definitely much worse than watching those veins vibrate on her forehead while she screamed. I was terrified. I could picture being forced to wear the toilet paper to school or her deciding to accompany me to the bathroom from here on out. It never dawned on me that she might know where it had come from and to this day I don’t know how she figure it out in an instant but within moments we were walking up the stairs to church. I will never forget sitting in front of that white haired old man once more, he who knew where my hands had been, and being forced to confess my thievery. Luckily I saw his face twist in humor as my mother talked having worked to teach us a lesson. Part of me hope he now knew why I touched myself. As if crazy parents might warrant the need for a hedonistic escape.

Needless to say my experiences with this new bishop were much different. My first interview commenced under the fluorescent glow of dock lights as I parked my car behind a deserted loading ramp. He had been very upfront about his ability to discern whether or not I was lying and it took roughly 7 minutes of small talk before I’d lifted my skirt in repentance. I suppose his knowledge of Bishop-esque terminology should’ve tipped me off, but almost 14 months later I still sat speechless when he began to talk of his faith. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve always stood as a defender of everyone’s right to believe whatever they choose, but having been Mormon myself I KNOW that casual sex in a vacant parking lot is not part of the word of wisdom. Sexually utilizing the idea of repentance or the confessing of sins probably doesn't look any better but I still can't fathom someone legitimately finding truth in “the church” and still seeing nothing wrong with bending me over the hood of my SUV.