The Abstinence Teacher

by Tom Perrotta

  And Carrie’s inability to connect with his daughter was an ongoing source of irritation. Tim normally thought of Abby as a sweet kid, but something about her new stepmother brought out the spoiled brat in her, an eye-rolling snottiness that had only gotten worse despite his repeated requests for her to show a little respect. Carrie responded by hiding her hurt feelings behind a wall of unconvincing endearments and smothering solicitude—What can I get for you, sweetie? Honey, do you need more light?—that grated on Tim as badly as it did on Abby.

  Ultimately, though, these were all minor grievances, the inevitable little letdowns that marked the transition between the honeymoon and till death do us part. The thing that really bothered him was bigger and more elusive, but it got closer to the heart of their relationship, his nagging suspicion that some vital ingredient was missing from their marriage.

  They never argued.

  Carrie was the most agreeable person he’d ever met. Whatever he wanted was fine with her. He controlled the finances, chose the shows they watched on TV, and told her what they would do on the weekends. She followed his instructions happily, without resentment or hesitation, in accordance with the passage from Ephesians, a framed version of which they had received as a wedding gift from Pastor Dennis, and was now hanging on their bedroom wall: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so the wives to their own husbands in everything.”

  He realized that a lot of guys would have envied him; in some ways, it was like living in an I Dream of Jeannie fantasy world. All he could figure was that the years he’d spent with Allison—a moody, demanding woman in the best of times—had warped his view of marriage, made him think of it not as a loving partnership but as an exhausting struggle for the upper hand, relieved by occasional bouts of angry, exhilarating sex. Whatever the reason, he was finding it a bit boring, getting his way all the time, never having to wheedle, compromise, or even engage in the most mundane sort of marital horse-trading. It just seemed a little too easy.

  He felt this keenly in the bedroom. Unlike Allison, who was a master of withholding sex—she got real pleasure out of making him beg—Carrie never, ever said no. Their entire love life happened on his timetable, according to his whims. He told her when to take off her nightgown, when to roll onto her stomach, when to use her mouth. It was a powerful feeling at first, to have an obedient young woman so completely at his disposal.

  But it got old fast. There was never any resistance, but there was never any suspense, either. Carrie didn’t say no, but she never initiated sex, either, never snuck up on him from behind while he was washing dishes and reached around for his dick, the way Allison had done on a couple of memorable occasions. She wouldn’t have dreamed of waking him in the morning by lowering her nipple into his half-open mouth, or coming home from the video store with Naughty Neighbors 2 instead of Apollo 13 (not that this would have done him any good, now that he’d sworn off porn).

  He wondered sometimes if he should talk to her about this, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. It seemed like it would kind of defeat the purpose, telling someone to please be more spontaneous, and then providing them with detailed instructions for how to go about it.

  PASTOR DENNIS must have sensed something was amiss, because he took Tim aside a few months after the wedding and asked, in a slightly ominous voice, how he and Carrie were making out.

  “Fine,” said Tim. “No complaints.”

  The Pastor lowered his voice. “What about your love life? Everything working the way it’s supposed to?”

  Tim hesitated. This wasn’t really anyone’s business but his and Carrie’s.

  “Not bad,” he said. “Still gettin’ acquainted.”

  Pastor Dennis pondered this for a moment.

  “You know what? I think it would be a good idea if my wife had a chat with your wife.”

  “That’s okay,” Tim told him. “It’s really not necessary.”

  “Nothing too heavy,” the Pastor assured him. “Just a little girl talk.”

  The Pastor’s wife, Emily—a plump, almost alarmingly upbeat woman—dropped by the apartment one Saturday while Tim and Abby were at a soccer game. She brought along a book called Hot Christian Sex: The Godly Way to Spice Up Your Marriage.

  “She said we should read this,” Carrie informed him in bed that night. “It supposedly worked wonders for her and Pastor Dennis.”

  Considering the somewhat puritanical character of the Tabernacle, the book turned out to be surprisingly racy. The authors, the Rev. Mark D. Finster and his wife, Barbara G. Finster, proclaimed the good news right in the Introduction: “For a Christian married couple, sex is nothing less than a form of worship, a celebration of your love for one another and a glorification of the Heavenly Father who brought you together. So of course God wants you to have better sex! And He wants you to have more of it than you ever had before, in positions you probably didn’t even know existed, with stronger orgasms than you believed were possible!”

  Tim was particularly intrigued by Chapter Five, “Is This Okay?” in which the Finsters gave an itemized list of just about every conceivable sexual act—including a few that were unfamiliar to him—along with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, depending upon whether the practice in question was expressly forbidden by Scripture.

  According to the Finsters, sex between married Christians was a lot more freewheeling than Tim had realized. Prostitution, adultery, threesomes, orgies, bestiality—basically anything involving a person or animal outside of the marriage—were off-limits, but beyond that there was considerable leeway. Masturbation was fine (especially if the nonmasturbating partner got to watch), as was role playing, just as long as the couple was married within the fantasy scenario, a requirement that struck Tim as a little unwieldy: Okay, you’re the nurse and I’m the patient … and, uh, we got married right before my hernia operation. The Finsters saw no biblical reason why a husband shouldn’t take nude pictures of his wife, or vice versa, just as long as no one else laid eyes on them, and they couldn’t locate anything in the Scriptures that conveyed explicit disapproval of light bondage and/or consensual S&M. Ditto for cross-dressing. Even anal sex, which Tim had assumed fell under the verboten category of “sodomy,” turned out to be okay for heterosexual married couples; only homosexual men were barred from backdoor intercourse, which struck Tim as a little unfair, but he wasn’t the one making the rules. The authors did express a certain amount of ambivalence about “so-called rim jobs”—they didn’t believe in pussyfooting around with euphemisms—but their objections were more bacterial than religious.

  The Finsters were generally gung ho about sexy lingerie—the Reverend rhapsodized a couple of times about the sight of Barbara G. in a garter belt and silk stockings—but they warned their readers to be wary of purchasing these items through secular catalogues and websites. The sight of glamorous models in skimpy, deliberately provocative outfits tended to produce sinful feelings of lust in the men who viewed them, while also inspiring unfair comparisons between their wives and the emaciated, surgically enhanced women in the photos. As an alternative, the Finsters recommended a handful of Christian websites that sold lingerie without the assistance of models. Tim showed the list to Carrie.

  “What do you think? Should we order a few things?”

  “Sure,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”

  FOR A while, at least, the book administered a welcome jolt of electricity to their marital bed. Tim ordered a see-through teddy for Carrie, some thigh-high stockings, and even a crotchless mesh bodysuit that rendered her mute with embarrassment (he finally just told her to take it off and toss it in the garbage). For some reason she was less freaked out by the merry widow, and girlishly happy to don the French maid costume, as if it were payback for all the Halloweens she’d been deprived of as a child. The element of dress-up freed them both somehow, made it a bit easier to try out some of the “Fun Activities” out
lined in Chapter Seven, “Steamin’ Up the Sheets.”

  It would have been great, except that Tim found himself thinking more and more frequently of Allison—she was a total Victoria’s Secret junkie—and the sexy outfits she’d surprised him with back in the day. On a few occasions, he succumbed to the temptation of ordering more or less identical items for Carrie—camouflage thong and tank top, pleated Catholic schoolgirl skirt, lacy red peekaboo bra and matching tap pants—and then attempting to re-create memorable scenarios from his first marriage.

  It never really worked, though. Whatever she wore, and however he asked her to behave, Carrie always remained stubbornly herself—sweet, compliant, eager to please. She would talk dirty if he insisted, but her vocabulary was severely limited, and she never managed to put any conviction behind the words. The one time he spanked her was a disappointment as well. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make himself believe, even for a minute or two, that she was a naughty girl who deserved correction. And she didn’t say Ouch the way Allison did, as if she were secretly enjoying the punishment. Carrie just said it like it hurt.

  Despite these setbacks, they kept at it, working doggedly through the summer and into the fall to claim their portion of hot Christian sex. Carrie never complained, but recently he’d begun sensing a certain weariness setting in, a desire to just do her part and get it over with. Tim’s own enthusiasm was flagging, too; for the first time in his life, he began suffering from an intermittent failure to perform, a dismal turn of events that made both of them feel inadequate.

  There were nights when he felt so trapped that the only thing he could do was get in his car and drive aimlessly around Stonewood Heights, listening to one of the three Grateful Dead CDs—American Beauty, Workingman’s Dead, and a bootleg of a show in Buffalo from the summer of 1988—he hadn’t been able to part with, despite his assurances to Pastor Dennis that he’d cut his ties, not only with the people he’d gotten drunk and high with in the past but with all the books and music and clothes connected to that dark chapter of the past. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he sometimes found himself driving repeatedly past certain bars, thinking of how pleasant it would be just to pop in and have a beer, less for the beer than for the company, and the darkness, and the music—the relief of finally being back home among his own kind. He’d been down this road before, of course, and knew with grim precision what sort of danger he was in.

  HE WAS so downhearted about the whole situation that he didn’t bother to conceal the truth when Pastor Dennis walked him out to his car after last week’s Wednesday Night Bible Study and asked how things were going with him and Carrie.

  “So-so,” said Tim. “We’re kinda treading water right now.”

  “I was wondering,” the Pastor said. “I sort of figured she might be pregnant by now.”

  “We’re not quite ready,” said Tim. “You know, money-wise. Buying the townhouse pretty much wiped out our savings.”

  “You know how I feel about waiting,” the Pastor reminded him. “You just gotta jump in.”

  “She’s young. We’ve got a lot of time.”

  “What about that book my wife gave you? Did it help?”

  “A little.” Tim gave a puzzled shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve just been feeling … kinda confused lately.”

  They were standing in the nearly empty parking lot of the Tabernacle. The night was cool and breezy; papery leaves skittered across the blacktop. The Pastor leaned forward, studying Tim a little more closely.

  “Confused? In what way?”

  “It’s weird.” Tim paused, taking a moment to wipe an inappropriate smile off his face. “I don’t know why, but I’ve been, uh, having a lot of feelings for my ex-wife lately. Sexual feelings. It’s kinda messed me up with Carrie.”

  “Your ex-wife is remarrried,” Pastor Dennis reminded him. “She’s moved on. So have you.”

  “I know.” Tim’s voice was barely louder than a murmur. “But some of the time … I mean, I’m not proud of this, but some of the time it’s like I’m using Carrie as a substitute. Like I’m with her, but I’m kind of letting myself pretend she’s Allison.”

  Even in the darkness, Tim could see the Pastor’s eyes go cold.

  “You’re pathetic,” he said.

  “I know,” said Tim. “But what am I supposed to do?”

  “Fix yourself,” the Pastor told him. “Ask God to help.”

  “I’ve tried that.”

  Pastor Dennis looked up at the sky, as if seeking advice. The moon was bright, three-quarters full, its bottom edge obscured by a raggedy cloud.

  “Try a little harder,” he said, bringing his gaze back to earth. “In the meantime, keep your unclean hands off your wife. She deserves better.”

  Tim hung his head. The Pastor sighed. He sounded beleaguered, like a guy who could use a stiff drink.

  “You made promises, Tim. It’s time to start keeping them.”

  TIM KNEW exactly what he was supposed to do that Sunday morning as he and Carrie knelt together on the living room rug. According to Pastor Dennis, there was an accepted procedure—it was drawn from I Corinthians 7—by which a husband notified his wife that he would be abstaining from sexual relations with her for a defined period until he purged himself of the lust that was preventing him from being the kind of husband God wanted him to be. Luckily, the husband was under no obligation to inform his wife about the specifics of his sinful desire; all he had to do was reassure her that he was working on the problem and that things would soon return to normal.

  Tim smiled at Carrie and took her hands in his. She smiled back, her face sweet and trusting, as always, but shadowed by a watchful anxiety that hadn’t been there on the day Pastor Dennis had brought them together at the church picnic. She still looked terribly young, but there was no denying that marriage had changed her.

  “Lord Jesus,” he said, “sometimes we’re not as strong as You want us to be.”

  Carrie nodded in agreement, but Tim could see the way her body tensed, as if she were bracing herself for bad news. He wondered sometimes if she wished they’d never met, wished that God had saved her for a younger, kinder, less demanding man, a husband who didn’t come burdened with a snotty daughter, an ex-wife he couldn’t seem to get out of his head, and such puzzling sexual needs.

  “That’s why we need Your help,” he said.

  “We all do,” Carrie said in a soft voice, and Tim couldn’t tell if this was part of the prayer, or if she was speaking directly to him. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Tim turned his gaze to the ceiling. He understood perfectly well that the throat-clearing was over, and that the moment had come to level with his wife. He even had his lines memorized. He was supposed to look her in the eyes and say, Carrie, I’ve made a decision.

  She wouldn’t cry, he thought. She’d bear the news like a trouper. But she’d worry, he thought, and probably blame herself for having done something wrong, even though she’d never done anything wrong. Not to him, and probably not to anyone. The whole mess was his fault, and it seemed heartless to make her suffer for it. It took an effort of will for him to restore eye contact with his wife.

  “Oh, Lord,” he said. “I am so grateful to you for bringing this wonderful woman into my life. You know I’m not worthy.”

  Carrie shook her head no, but he could see how pleased she was. Tim leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Do me a favor,” he prayed. “Help me to love her the way she deserves.”

  Praise Team

  TIM AND CARRIE ARRIVED FORTY-FIVE MINUTES EARLY FOR SUNDAY meeting. The lot was nearly empty, but they parked several rows back from the main entrance, leaving the closer-in spaces for old people, families with small kids, and anyone else who had a hard time getting around.

  Despite its impressive-sounding name, the Tabernacle wasn’t a grand religious edifice, a marble-and-stained-glass monument to the glory of God. It was, in fact, a bland commercial building, a two-thousand-sq
uare-foot storefront—it had been a Fashion Bug in its previous incarnation—in Griswold Commons, a once-thriving outdoor mall that had fallen on hard times since the glittering Stonewood Arcadia Retail & Entertainment Center had opened less than a mile away, on a stretch of land along the railroad tracks that had formerly been home to a chemical plant, a cardboard box factory, and a manufacturer of inflatable pool toys.

  Considering that the Tabernacle’s attendance and revenue had more than doubled over the past year, Pastor Dennis could probably have afforded a move to classier digs—the local archdiocese was actively seeking evangelical tenants for some of its recently mothballed facilities—but he showed no interest in relocating. Aside from the thrill of preaching to a packed house every week, the Pastor appreciated the ample parking—only a couple of the neighboring stores were open on Sunday morning—and the fact that curious passersby and nervous first-timers could watch the service through the plate-glass window before making the momentous decision to step inside. He also liked the symbolism of a church in the mall—one more Temple of Greed reclaimed for the Lord—and did his best to exploit the possibilities it offered for creative proselytizing. This morning, for example, there was a bright orange banner taped across the front window.

  “PUT SATAN OUT OF BUSINESS!” it said. “DON’T MISS OUR BIG SAVINGS!”

  BEYOND ALL the practical advantages of the current location, though, Tim and the rest of the congregation knew that Pastor Dennis had a more personal reason for staying put: he believed Griswold Commons was sacred ground. It was here, just a few short years ago, that he’d first heard the call of the Lord and begun his career as a preacher.

  He’d told the story in a sermon delivered during one of Tim’s first visits to the Tabernacle, and referred to it frequently in the months that followed, always striking the same note of quiet wonderment at the fact of having been struck down on the Road to Damascus.

  The way he described it, he was a lost soul at the time, a man in his late twenties with a low-paying job, living in the basement of his mother’s house. It was especially embarrassing because he’d been a boy of great promise, the salutatorian of his high-school class, winner of a partial scholarship to the prestigious Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.