Carla was a commercial artist who dabbled in "fine art" as well. She lived east of Toronto. She was divorced and had a little boy. She belonged to the Mormon Church, and all of her friends were Mormons, too. Imagine happy, square-looking families on 50's television, and that's what Mormons are like. They don't drink alcohol, tea, or coffee, and they don't smoke. They're big on "family values" and definitely do not approve of sex outside of marriage. Carla should never have been a Mormon because she was much too sexy. But she needed the church for the sense of belonging it gave her. Her parents were cold-blooded stiffs, and she had grown up starved for love and approval. So she nestled into the patriarchal bosom of the church, which only demanded that she regard it as an authority in her life and live by its precepts. The Mormons are not bad people, but they are meddlesome. After all, you're really part of an extended family, and it's only natural for family members to take an interest in each other's well-being. And think of your child. You must give us your child once or twice a week for proper indoctrination.

     I did not want to think about Mormonism, or God, or Jesus, or anything religious. I was an agnostic, thank you, and I wanted to be left alone to enjoy my mundane vices. I only wanted to think about how great Carla's ass looked from behind as I fucked her. She may not have been the best lay I ever had, but I prefer to judge a woman by her best attributes, not her worst. It's true that she wouldn't let me come in her mouth because "that's not where a man's sperm is supposed to go." It's true that she only liked to fuck in one position (on her side with me tucked in behind). And it's true that she refused to look at pornography. But she had one endearing idiosyncrasy that set her apart from all other women I've ever known. Her favorite sex act was to lie on top of me in the "69" position and grind her pussy against my mouth for up to an hour until she came. I found it tremendously exciting.

     On other occasions, however, she would ruin the mood entirely. One time we're in the middle of fucking, and right out of left field she says to me, "Tell me it's not just physical." Well, sex may be spiritual but not when your're doing it. When you're doing it, it's supposed to be purely physical. As Woody Allen observed, sex is dirty if you're doing it right. Here was an example of religion intruding itself into what should have been a normal, romantic, sexual relationship.

     That damned church. I couldn't get away from it. Every one of Carla's friends had a brain full of Bible babble. I never heard a normal conversation. It was always Jesus this and Jesus that. One time she was entertaining this couple. The husband was a stereotypical low-brow truck driver. He went on and on about his old life of sin and how he found Jesus and was saved from the devil. So now he was an expert on sin, get it? When Carla mentions that she bought a one-dollar lottery ticket, he tells her, "These things are from the other side..." (meaning hell). And Carla is trying to justify herself by saying the money goes for good purposes like hospitals. I excused myself at that point and went outside for a smoke. Later, when the guests were gone, I said to her, "Why do you feel you have to justify yourself to an idiot like that?"

     Even more galling was the time I had to hide in the bedroom one morning when a client came by to drop off a design job. This guy belonged to a church that was ten times more flipped out than the Mormons. Carla was afraid that if he knew I'd spent the night, he'd stop giving her any business.

     Collecting authority figures was just one way in which Carla complicated her life. She lived beyond her means, she had no concept of money, she was a compulsive saver of junk, and her sense of household management was non-existent. You'd open a cupboard and find five jars of mustard with different amounts of mustard, including year-old rubbery residues. Where was her brain? One time she ran out of cheques and had to pay a bill, so she got an old chequebook from a defunct account, crossed out the name of the bank and the account number, and wrote in the name of her current bank and account number. Guess what? The cheque was returned.

     Shortly after I met her, she decided to move, and since I had a car, I volunteered to help her. Her basement was such an archeological horror, I nearly had a nervous breakdown. You couldn't believe that a divorced woman with one child could amass so much junk. She had enough kitchenware to outfit three complete kitchens. She had tubes of toothpaste of a brand that was no longer made. A large amount of stuff got left at the curb for the garbagemen.

     Her new place was larger and more expensive. Carla had no savings. She was always just barely paying the rent and just barely completing her jobs by the deadline. I had to drive her through a snowstorm so she could deliver an ad to a newspaper with only minutes to spare.

     Carla had to prove to her mother that she was a success, so she kept a higher standard of living than she could afford. She borrowed money from me twice. Her life style bothered me so much I criticized her constantly. Meanwhile, her church friends were pressuring her to get married and stop living an immoral life.

     Each weekend I would drive out and spend two days with her. There was sex to look forward to, which I'm sorry to say was my principal motivation. As well, I had simply gotten into the habit of going out there because if I didn't, there'd be a tearful argument over the phone. I was too weak to say to myself, "I'm not happy. I'm not going back." My brains were in my dick. This is the most common character defect of the male sex.

     The trouble was that Carla loved me desperately. She was determined to get me to marry her. But there was no way I was going to join her church.