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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 127 but played the devotee in public. I reasoned like how some places there were Catholics and others Baptists, or Methodists, or Jews, or Buddhists, here the people were Mormons, and it would be disrespectful of our culture for me to blow the whistle. Some people been calling me an apostate, Sharlee chief among them, but the truth is I'm as Mormon as the rest of them, allowing for different reasons. I collect fast offerings and bless sacrament and attend Priests Quorum regular, same as them. When I came to be with Aunt Davina and Uncle Boss I even confessed in Bishop Hearthway's office my carnal sins, including nocturnal emissions and my habit of personal interference, an embarrassment, especially since the Bishop gave me all kinds of advice for avoiding temptation, like playing yo-yo when I got the urge, or always going to the bathroom with the door open so I couldn't have privacy to defile my stuff. Well, me and Sharlee were adversaries from starts, and she came off righteous calling me shameless for voiding bowels with an open door, and then when I pulled it closed, she said I was a pervert. Uncle Boss made a speech in my defense about how it was only natural for a teenaged boy to touch his stuff, and that's what made it sinful, the natural man being an enemy to God, but all the same there was nothing suspicious about it. He was only trying to help but embarrassed me more, and then Sharlee started spreading vicious lies about me at the high school. Her scheme to get all the decent kids to shun me succeeded, but what she didn't anticipate was all the scarlet girls took interest. This made me miserable with a devil's potency I was barely penitent enough to withstand. I had to rub hot peppers on my hands before going to bed for discouragement and sometimes I forgot to wash it off before urinating in the morning. Those times were awful for me and my only comfort was that Sharlee was too ugly not to be chaste. |