My First Missionary: pt 1
The thing about being the ward’s designated Good Girl is that nobody ever tells you how boring the pedestal gets. By December of senior year, I’d spent eighteen years—well, eighteen as of October, thank you very much—collecting gold stars like they were going to pay my college tuition. Nearly perfect seminary attendance? Check. Laurel (Now the Gatherers of Light) class president? Check. Never once tasted coffee, never once let a boy’s hand wander south of my shoulder blade during a stake dance.
My mom calls it righteousness. I called it a distinct lack of opportunity.
Until Tanner Fucking Call.
That’s not his middle name, obviously. His middle name is probably something aggressively Mormon like Nephi or Moroni. And, to be fair, that’s not his actual name anyway. Gotta protect the…innocent. But in my head, he became Tanner Fucking Call the moment his name lit up my phone on a random Tuesday night, because Tanner Call didn’t text girls like me. Tanner Call was six-foot-three of varsity basketball muscle, son of the stake president, and so far out of my choir-nerd orbit that I actually checked to make sure the message wasn’t meant for someone else.
Hey, it’s Tanner. You probably don’t remember me from junior high.
I stared at the screen, thumbs hovering. I remembered him, but why would he be texting me?
What followed was a week of texts that I refused to overanalyze but definitely overanalyzed. He was funny in a self-deprecating way I hadn’t expected. He asked questions about choir and drama, seemed genuinely interested when I complained about our director’s obsession with Les Mis medleys. I learned he was leaving for the England Manchester mission in two weeks. I learned he’d broken up with his girlfriend of a year because she didn’t want to wait. I learned his thumbs moved fast and his jokes landed and that I was in serious trouble when he asked me out for ice cream.
My acceptance was immediate and deeply stupid. The boy was leaving the country in fourteen days. What exactly was I expecting to happen?
Still. I spent an hour and forty minutes choosing an outfit.
The jeans were easy—dark wash, high waisted, the pair that made my ass look like I actually attended the gym instead of just thinking about it. The top required three outfit changes and a FaceTime consult with my best friend Megan, who is not LDS and therefore approaches these situations with considerably less existential dread. We settled on a cream-colored sweater that had a looser neck, like it wanted to be draped off one shoulder, but just hasn’t expanded that far yet. Modest enough for a missionary’s conscience. Strategic enough for mine.
Then came the underwear, which was, objectively, a ridiculous deliberation. He’s not going to see it, I kept reminding myself as I sorted through my drawer. He’s literally leaving for his mission. You are not the girl who derails a mission. I put on a matching set anyway—black lace, the good stuff I bought with birthday money and never had a reason to wear. The bra lifted. The panties sat high on my hips. Stupid, I thought. Pointless. I checked the mirror twice anyways.
The ice cream shop was in downtown, all exposed brick and ironic signage, the kind of place that serves artisanal flavors to couples holding hands across reclaimed wood tables. Tanner picked me up, like all chivalrous Mormon dates should. He was in a gray henley that did absolutely nothing to hide the shoulders beneath it. His smile when he saw me was slow and crooked and made my stomach drop like I’d missed a stair.
Inside, we ordered—honey lavender for him, raspberry dark chocolate for me—and slid into a booth near the window. The conversation was easy. Easier than it should have been for two people who’d occupied completely different social ecosystems for six years. He talked about his mission nerves, the weird feeling of being excited and terrified simultaneously. I talked about college applications, how I was waiting to hear back from all the colleges I had applied to. Nervous to move on.
By the time we finished, the shop was closing. The teenage employee was pointedly wiping down counters. Tanner’s truck was parked in the far corner of the lot, under a light that flickered orange and unreliable.
“Thanks for coming out tonight,” he said, hands in his pockets.
“Thanks for proving that stake president’s sons can actually hold a conversation.”
He laughed, ducked his head. “Low bar.”
“Very low.”
We reached the passenger door, and he didn’t step back to let me in. The air was December-cold, our breath visible, and I noticed for the first time that his eyes were this weird shade of hazel—green and brown and something almost gold near the center. He was looking at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle. Then his hand came up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and the touch was so unexpectedly gentle that my lips parted without permission.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he said.
“Tuck my hair?”
“Touch you.”
One word. Touch. It landed somewhere low in my stomach.
He kissed me then, and it wasn’t the polite, chaste kiss I’d gotten at exactly two stake dances from exactly two boys who’d asked permission beforehand. This was hungry. His mouth slanted over mine, his hand cupping the back of my neck, and I made a sound I’d never made before—a soft, surprised noise that seemed to light something in him. His other hand found my waist. Slipped under my sweater. Rested there, hot against the bare skin above my jeans.
We ended up in the truck. Backseat. Engine off. The windows fogged almost immediately.
His hands were everywhere but also nowhere—above clothing, always above clothing, skimming over fabric like he was memorizing the shape of me through layers of denim and cotton and lace. His palm dragged up my ribcage, thumb grazing the underside of my breast through my sweater, and my back arched into the touch before my brain could register the movement. The underwire of my stupid black bra pressed into his hand, and I swear I felt him smile against my mouth.
“This okay?” he breathed.
“Yes.” My voice was sandpaper.
His fingers traced the outline of the lace over my sternum. Gentle. Exploratory. Then his mouth was on my neck, and his hand slid higher, cupping me fully over the sweater, and the pressure made my hips roll forward without any conscious decision on my part.
That was when I felt him. Through his jeans. Hard against my thigh.
My body catalogued the sensation with terrifying precision—the shape, the heat, the way he shifted slightly like he was embarrassed but couldn’t help it. My brain, meanwhile, was firing off a series of increasingly panicked Mormon alerts: Chastity. Virtue. Temple marriage. You are literally the temptation that keeps missionaries from the field.
His mouth found mine again, and I could taste the honey lavender on his tongue, and my legs were spreading slightly without my permission, and his hips were pressing into the space they created, and—
“We need to stop,” he said, pulling back so abruptly that the cold air rushed between us.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Absolutely. Yes.”
We were both breathing hard. His forehead dropped to my shoulder. His hand was still on my ribcage, thumb stroking once, twice, before he withdrew it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be.”
“I’m supposed to be better than this.”
The words hit me like a cold washcloth. Better than this. Better than me.
He drove me home in silence, and I let myself inside with trembling fingers, and I lay in bed replaying every touch in excruciating, Technicolor detail. Sin, I thought. I am sin. I am the girl who nearly kept the stake president’s son from serving the Lord. My body was still humming, still aching in a way I’d been told righteous bodies don’t ache.
I couldn’t shake it, though. I was walking temptations. How close had we been to disqualifying him from missionary service? I didn’t know. I had never been in this situation before. Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about it.
Then my phone buzzed.
Tonight was incredible. Can I see you again before I leave?
The fire in my stomach was supposed to be guilt. It was supposed to be shame. But now it wasn’t.
I stared at the ceiling, one hand still curled around my phone.
I wanted his hands on me again.
The thought was so clear, so honest, so completely devoid of the repentance I should have been feeling, that I almost said it out loud.
I texted back. How about tomorrow?