The Abstinence Teacher

by Tom Perrotta

“Feels okay to me,” he said, punctuating this assessment with a gentle squeeze. “If you take your clothes off, I’ll be happy to perform a more thorough examination.”

  If there was anything in the world Ruth wanted less at that moment than a thorough examination of her ass, she wasn’t sure what it might be.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” she told him.

  He kissed his way down her neck to the opening of her blouse and began undoing the buttons, revealing her lacy black bra.

  “Mmm,” he said. “Look at that.”

  She placed her hand on top of his.

  “Not yet. I’m feeling a little shy.”

  Paul didn’t argue. He stepped away from her, looking directly into her eyes, and unthreaded his tie.

  “It’s okay. I’ll go first.”

  With the teasing patience of a stripper, he unbuttoned his shirt. His chest was bronzed and nearly hairless, his belly startlingly flat. He checked for her reaction.

  “You look good,” she told him.

  “It’s amazing.” He gazed affectionately down the length of his torso. “I can see my feet.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his socks and shoes. Then he undid his pants.

  “Don’t be surprised if it looks a little bigger than it used to,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “It’s not actually bigger, but the proportions in that area are different now. I think what it was, my belly actually used to make it look smaller than it really is.”

  “Makes sense,” she said.

  Wearing only boxers, he lay down on the bed and smiled up at her, hands cupped behind his head.

  “Why don’t you take your clothes off and join me?”

  “In a minute,” she said. “I’m not quite ready yet.”

  Paul slid his hand inside the waistband of his shorts and began stroking himself.

  “You’re a sexy woman,” he said. “It really turns me on to have you watching me.”

  “I’m glad,” she replied.

  He wriggled out of his boxers and tossed them on the floor near her feet.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  Ruth wasn’t sure what was holding her back. In theory, this was what she’d come here for. But for some reason she couldn’t move.

  “Something wrong?” he asked. “Am I freaking you out?”

  “It’s not you,” she assured him. “I just haven’t been with anyone for a long time.”

  He nodded thoughtfully and sat up.

  “We don’t have to fuck,” he said. “You could just go down on me if you want. You were always great at that.”

  “I was fifteen,” she told him. “I didn’t have a clue.”

  “Coulda fooled me,” he said, scooching back to the edge of the mattress. “I thought you were amazing.”

  Ruth hesitated for a moment before kneeling at his feet. It felt like the least she could do.

  “Sweetheart,” he whispered.

  The night had been interesting. It had been a pleasure to reconnect with Paul after all these years, to find him physically transformed and happier than ever. She was touched by how fondly he remembered their time together, and flattered by the fact that he still wanted her.

  “Oh, Ruthie,” he said, running his fingers through her hair. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

  Paul’s penis was hard, just a few inches from her mouth, and it did seem bigger than she remembered. It was a very inconvenient time for her to be thinking about Tim Mason, and the way he’d looked at her earlier in the evening, after she twirled around for him on the sidewalk in front of her house. The twilight had been fading, and there was some distance between them, but his face seemed oddly vivid as he studied her, full of pain and longing.

  Do I look okay?

  Her question had seemed innocent enough at the time—part curiosity, part harmless flirtation—but it had been a physical shock to receive the answer, to register the full unspoken force of his approval, a jolt to her system from which she still hadn’t recovered. She would’ve given a lot to still be standing with Tim on that dark quiet street, instead of kneeling here on the coarse hotel carpet, thinking how unhappy Paul was going to be in a second or two, when she stood up and told him that she’d made a mistake and needed to go home.

  Two Tims

  FRANK DROPPED THE GIRLS OFF AROUND EIGHT O’CLOCK ON SATURDAY evening, and Ruth sensed something was up the moment they walked in the door. Normally, Maggie was bubbly and affectionate after a night away from home, eager to talk about her game and find out what her mother had done all day, while Eliza skulked in the background, rarely volunteering more than a few grudging monosyllables before disappearing into her room. Tonight, though, the dynamic was reversed.

  “Mom,” Eliza said, stepping forward and greeting Ruth with a suspiciously emphatic hug. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” Ruth smiled quizzically at Maggie, who was still hanging back near the doorway, clutching a plastic trash bag full of muddy soccer clothes, shin guards, and cleats. “Everything okay?”

  “Great.” Eliza let go of Ruth and folded her arms across her chest in a pretty good impersonation of one adult leveling with another. “But the three of us need to talk.”

  “Fine,” Ruth said, glancing again at Maggie. “Let’s talk.”

  The girls dropped their backpacks on the floor and headed straight to the kitchen table, as if the Saturday night family conference were a regularly scheduled event. Ruth followed, resisting the urge to offer a snack or try to engage them in small talk. They had something serious to say, and she wanted to honor it with her full attention.

  “Mom,” Eliza began, “you know how I’m going to church tomorrow with the Parks?”

  Ruth had to make an effort not to roll her eyes. Going to church with the Parks was the only thing Eliza had talked about all week.

  “I’m well aware of it, honey. They’re coming at eight thirty, right?”

  “Right.” Eliza glanced at her sister. “Maggie wants to come, too.”

  “She does?” Ruth turned to Maggie, struggling to maintain a neutral expression. “Is this true?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said, and Ruth could hear the courage it took for her to utter this one simple word.

  Jesus, she thought, am I that terrifying?

  “Was this your sister’s idea?” Ruth spoke carefully, hoping to sound curious rather than upset.

  “No way,” said Eliza.

  “I asked her,” Maggie explained.

  “But why? You never had any interest in church before.”

  With the tip of her right index finger, Maggie carefully traced the outline of her splayed left hand on the table, like a kindergartner drawing a turkey. Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “I want to know Jesus.”

  “Oh, come on,” Ruth groaned. “Not you, too.”

  Maggie looked up. Her voice was stronger now.

  “I felt Him. After the game. When we said our prayer.”

  “What?” Ruth felt like she’d been sucker punched. “Who said a prayer?”

  “The team. Just like last week. Some of the Gifford players joined us.”

  “Was Coach Tim part of this?”

  Maggie nodded. “Coach John, too.”

  Ruth couldn’t believe it. While she’d been at the refresher course, thinking tender thoughts about Tim, he’d been on the field, stabbing her in the back.

  Some Christian, she thought.

  “A few of the girls wouldn’t do it,” Maggie added. “Nadima and Louisa and a couple of others. They didn’t kneel down or anything.”

  “They did the right thing,” Ruth told her. “You know how I feel about that praying.”

  “I know,” Maggie said. “But I wanted to.”

  “Why? You don’t believe in Jesus.”

  “How do you know?” Eliza broke in. “Don’t tell her what she believes.”

  Ruth shut her eyes. When she opened them, both girls were staring at her with fierce expressions. In a funny way, s
he was proud of them.

  “Jeez,” she said with a dark chuckle. “Couldn’t you just get piercings like everybody else?”

  “Yuck,” said Maggie.

  “So can she go?” Eliza demanded.

  Ruth raised her hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “If she wants. I’m not gonna say no.”

  “Great.” Eliza stood up. “I have to call Grace.”

  Maggie and Ruth sat in silence for a few seconds after Eliza left. Ruth wanted to say something calm and encouraging, but she couldn’t think of anything.

  “Mom,” Maggie said. “Do I have to wear a dress tomorrow?”

  “Wear what you want,” Ruth told her. “I don’t think Jesus cares one way or the other.”

  ELIZA APPARENTLY had a different opinion about the Savior’s fashion preferences, because the girls came down on Sunday morning looking like they were heading to a school dance. Not only were they both wearing skirts and tights, they’d also acquired elegant new hairstyles—Maggie’s woven into a tight French braid, Eliza’s piled high on her head, held in place by a tortoiseshell clamp. Ruth hadn’t seen them this dressed up since they were flower girls at their cousin Melissa’s wedding four years ago.

  “You look pretty,” she told them.

  Maggie smiled shyly and touched the back of her head.

  “Eliza did my braid. You like it?”

  “I love it. You should wear it like that to school sometime.”

  “We wanted to do each other’s nails,” Eliza added. “But we ran out of time.”

  Ruth was touched to see them bonding like this. She’d been troubled for a long time by their lack of interest in each other, so different from the intense, conspiratorial relationship she’d shared with her own sister. Ruth and Mandy had spent their adolescence hiding from their parents, listening to music in candlelit rooms, telling secrets, plotting their jailbreaks. Every transgression Ruth committed in high school, she’d understood herself to be hurrying down a glamorous trail Mandy had blazed specifically for her, trying to catch up to her big sister so that one day the two of them could walk together as equals. There was nothing like that kind of intimacy between Eliza and Maggie, who mostly treated each other with a polite indifference that occasionally flared into outright hostility. Ruth just wished they’d found something besides a visit to the Living Waters Fellowship to bring them together.

  “So can I make you guys some breakfast?”

  “We don’t have time,” Eliza told her. “Grace said they have donuts and stuff at the church.”

  “Yum.” Maggie licked her lips and rubbed her hands together, as if trying to remind her mother that she was still just a little kid. “Donuts.”

  “Let me get you some cereal, just in case. It won’t take long.”

  Eliza shook her head, inspecting Ruth with an unhappy expression.

  “Mom,” she said. “Could you put some real clothes on?”

  Ruth was startled by this question. She was wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt—a souvenir from her first 10k race—her usual weekend loungewear.

  “Why? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re gonna meet Mr. and Mrs. Park like that?”

  “Ugh,” said Ruth. “I have to meet them?”

  “Grace said they wanted to say hello. They figured you might be a little nervous about this.”

  Ruth would have liked to say too bad, the Parks would just have to accept her as she was, but, in reality, she had no more enthusiasm for the idea of meeting strangers dressed like this than her daughters did. She just hadn’t thought it through, hadn’t accepted the situation enough to foresee that the Parks might not just pull up in front of the house and honk the horn, the way soccer parents did when they were carpooling to practice.

  “All right,” Ruth said. “Let me go change. It’ll only take a minute.”

  Eliza smiled gratefully.

  “Mom?” Maggie added. “Could you maybe brush your hair, too?”

  RUTH GOT herself spruced up as best she could in the short time available, but ended up feeling like she shouldn’t have bothered. Grace’s mother, Esther Park, was such a stunningly attractive woman—small-boned, well dressed, effortlessly radiant—that Ruth felt instantly and hopelessly drab by comparison, as though she might just as well have been wearing soup-stained pajamas.

  “Good morning,” Esther said, shaking Ruth’s suddenly enormous hand with great vigor. She wore her hair in a shoulder-length bob, one side of it falling gracefully across her cheek. “It’s such a privilege for us to take your children to worship with us. You’ve given us a wonderful gift.”

  “Thank you for offering,” Ruth said. “I’m glad our kids have become such good friends.”

  “I am, too.” Esther’s teardrop face crinkled with delight as she glanced at her daughter, a solidly built girl just an inch or two shorter than she was, with a bigger bust. Grace smiled back, her mouth busy with orthodontia. “We just moved here from Chicago a few months ago, and it takes a while to get acclimated.”

  “Chicago,” Ruth repeated, feeling a bit foolish. Somehow she’d gotten the impression that the Parks were newly arrived from Korea. “I didn’t know you were from Chicago.”

  “The Windy City,” Mr. Park said, by way of confirmation. He was a boyish-looking man with a high shiny forehead, dressed in a dark suit and an open-collared white shirt. “Ever been there?”

  “Just once,” Ruth said. “Quite a while ago. I had a nice time.”

  “We didn’t live in the city proper,” Esther explained. “We had a place in Evanston. That’s where Henry grew up.”

  “But we like it here in Stonewood Heights,” he assured her. “It’s got a real small-town feel to it. Almost Midwestern.”

  “It’s got its good points,” Ruth allowed.

  “Grace says you’re a teacher.”

  “That’s right,” Ruth said. “In the high school. I’m not sure it’s the brightest idea to teach in the town where you live, but that’s how it worked out.”

  “What subject?”

  Ruth felt her daughters watching her, silently pleading.

  “Health,” she said, to their obvious relief.

  Henry smiled politely but didn’t follow up.

  “It must be hard,” Esther observed. “Working full-time and caring for your children.” She didn’t say without a husband, but Ruth heard the words nonetheless.

  “Sometimes,” she said. “It’s not so bad now that they’re older. Besides, I always wanted to work. I’m not sure what I’d do with myself at home all day.”

  “You keep busy,” Esther told her. “I used to be a biomedical researcher before Grace was born. I did a lot of work on autoimmune disorders. But once I quit I never really looked back. Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of tennis.”

  Henry took an expensive-looking digital camera out of his pocket and asked Eliza and Maggie if they’d mind posing for some pictures with Grace.

  “This is a momentous occasion,” he said. “I’d like to record it for posterity.”

  In the first couple of photos, the three girls stood smiling in front of the couch, arms around each others’ shoulders. Grace was dressed just like Eliza and Maggie—dark skirt and tights, light-colored blouse—and seeing them all in a row like that, Ruth suddenly realized that they’d coordinated their wardrobes over the phone last night, the way she and her high-school friends used to agree to wear their tightest designer jeans on Fridays.

  “Let’s get a couple of Maggie kneeling in front,” Henry suggested. “Big girls, you each put a hand on her shoulder.”

  When they were finished with that series, Henry asked the girls if they’d mind heading out to the front lawn for a few more shots, considering that it was such a lovely fall day. The girls were more than happy to oblige, and Henry herded them out the front door, leaving Esther and Ruth alone in the living room. It all happened so smoothly that it took Ruth a couple of seconds to realize that she’d been set up.

>   “Your daughters are lovely people,” Esther observed, with an incongruous note of sadness in her voice.

  “Thank you,” Ruth replied. “Grace seems sweet.”

  Esther laid a nearly weightless hand on Ruth’s shoulder.

  “Why don’t you come with us?” she said. “It’s good to keep the family together.”

  “No thanks.” Ruth smiled over her irritation. “I think I’ll just stay here and read the paper.”

  “It’s a very low-key service,” Esther informed her. “And very non-judgmental. Nobody cares if you’re single or divorced. And the sermons are really good. Thought-provoking, but not too heavy. The Reverend’s got a real sense of humor.”

  “It’s nice of you to offer,” Ruth said, “but I’m not the least bit interested.”

  Esther’s face betrayed a fleeting hint of distaste.

  “Are you sure? Won’t it be lonely for you, all by yourself on Sunday morning?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Ruth assured her. “But thanks for asking.”

  THE THREE giggling girls piled into the backseat of the Parks’ Volvo wagon. Watching them drive away, Ruth couldn’t help thinking, just for a second, that maybe she should’ve accepted Esther’s invitation, because at least then she would’ve been with her kids, and not just standing here stupidly on her front porch, all by herself on Sunday morning, waving good-bye to a carload of people who weren’t even looking at her, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do until they came back.

  She went inside and lay down on the couch, knowing even as she did so that it was a bad idea, that this was one of those days when the couch should be avoided at all costs. The newspaper was sitting on the coffee table, a fat slab of distraction wrapped inside a blue plastic bag, but she couldn’t seem to make herself sit up and get it.

  Come on, she thought. You can’t just lie here.

  She knew what she was supposed to do. She’d checked her e-mail last night, and had found messages from Arlene Zabel and Matt Friedman, informing her of what had happened at the game and offering to add their names to her letter of complaint to the Soccer Association. Both of them said they felt betrayed by Coach Tim, who had verbally assured them that there would be no more prayers on the playing field.