I only want to be with one man, a man I’m in love with, my mind screams in torment. That’s only in romance novels, I scold myself, gulping for air, my head and eyes red and aching. Perhaps I have been polluted by worldly ideals of romance and monogamy instead of sex as sacrifice for the good of others.
That Friday night, I get ready for my date with Benji, which will take place in the living room. It’s the only room in the apartment that doesn’t have multiple people sleeping in it. Wearing my nightgown, I make the short walk through the dim orange light of the hallway. I can do this, I can do this, I repeat over and over. I don’t have to do anything. I won’t do anything, I think at the same time.
My feet don’t want to cooperate. The living room is dark; a dim light illuminates the mattress made up on the floor. I can barely look at Benji’s hopeful, eager face. Up to now, I’ve enjoyed and appreciated his friendship. But I know this, being forced to sleep with him, will change everything. He embraces me, and I try not to shudder. We sit awkwardly on the mattress side by side. I’m not eager to help him.
He tries to kiss me. I let him. This is for God, I recite over and over in my head. Please, God, help me!
Benji’s hands start to roam over my breast under the nightgown. He is hesitant and unsure. He must have had sex before, but it doesn’t seem like it.
God, how long is this going to take? I pull my nightgown over my head and lie prone on the mattress. I kiss him, trying to block out sound, smell, and feeling. Get outside my body and just pretend it’s someone else. I’m someone else. He undresses quickly. Thank God it’s dark so he can’t see my expression. There is nothing wrong with him. Skinny, white, freckled skin, but he’s not ugly or old. What’s wrong with me?
Benji lays over me, and we fumble a bit. It hurts when he pushes in, but it always does. In a minute he is done. Thank God.
I hug him and give him a kiss, grateful it’s over. Then I throw on my nightgown and run to the bathroom. In the shower, I scrub my body over and over, inside and out.
My joy in Benji’s sunny, open nature is destroyed. He seems confused when nothing more comes of our sharing. Despite living in the same house, I find I can avoid being alone with him, and he is gone most of the day on witnessing trips anyway. I’m grateful for my secluded little world with Emily, who takes my full attention, so I can’t dwell on things. The only time I can’t suppress my dread is at 2:00 a.m., when I bolt upright in terror. The toilet and I have frequent meetings with God as I kneel on the cold black-and-white tiles and beg, Please, please, please, dear Jesus, please don’t let me get pregnant.
And I can’t leave the country without asking the Shepherds to buy me a plane ticket—not that I would seriously consider leaving. God brought me here. My suffering is my own fault. I’m not submitted enough. I need to work harder to have no will of my own so I can truly be the yielded vessel Grandpa talks about.
Abigail calls to me in the hallway several weeks later. “I need to talk with you about something serious that has come to our attention.”
My heart nearly stops. I slept with Benji. What more can I do? Please don’t make me do it again, I want to scream. But I follow her to her room again.
“We need your help. Have you noticed that Steph is hanging around Matthew a lot?”
Oh boy, I think. Not good.
I had met Matthew back in Moscow when some teens from a few Homes had gathered in a park to play dodge ball. He obviously thought all the girls liked him. Tall and lanky with floppy black hair and blue eyes, he walked with a lazy, confident strut. I ignored him. I knew from experience that guys like that were trouble.
We’d barely exchanged a few words, but it was enough. He thought I was proud and stuck-up, and I thought he was an arrogant ass. I didn’t even know he lived in Abigail’s Home until a month after I’d arrived; he’d been away on a two-month road trip, witnessing in other cities throughout Kazakhstan. Our mutual dislike upon meeting had been tempered by living together in the same house, but not by much. With my efforts to be humbler, I had tried to stop my subtle digs, but he had no such qualms.
“We are concerned,” Abigail continues. “Steph is only fifteen, and he is sixteen. As you know, it’s now against the rules for anyone under sixteen to have sex with anyone over sixteen.”
I nod. The rules have changed once again. The age limit for any sexual genital contact is now sixteen. Sixteen-and seventeen-year-olds can only have sex with people under twenty-one, and eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds with people up to seven years older than them. Once you age out into over twenty-one, you are fair game for the older FGA adults.
Breaking these sex rules brings punishment not just to the teens, but to their parents, too. So I understand why Abigail looks desperate. A violation like this could affect the whole Home when reported to the Area Shepherds.
“Matthew is brokenhearted. He left his girlfriend in Russia,” Abigail explains. “He wants consolation, but I’m afraid that if Steph keeps hanging around and comforting him, it will be more than that.”
I nod again, unsure where this is going.
“Please talk to him. Distract him from our daughter. Give him a listening ear.”
“I will,” I promise, relieved she’s not requesting that I have sex with him. I can stomach Matthew’s company, as long as it doesn’t come to that.
The next night, I find Steph at the table speaking with Matthew. She leans in, touching his arm, but he jumps back when he sees me. “Steph.” I give her a big-sister smile. “Your mom wants you to head to bed.”
“You should be in bed, too!” she snaps.
“I’ll be right there.”
Steph huffs off, and Matthew, disappointed to lose his audience, looks as if he might go, too.
“I’m making tea. Do you want some?”
“Sure,” he says, cocking his head.
I try to be the adult. “Look, I know we’ve had a rough start, but I’m working on becoming humbler, so maybe we can try again?”
He watches me warily, not sure what I’m up to.
I set the kettle to boil and sit down across the table. What in the world do I talk about? I cast around desperately. “So how did you like Russia?”
“It was okay.”
“You know, I left my boyfriend behind in Japan when I came here,” I say, trying to give him an opening.
He looks surprised. “Yeah, that must have been hard. I left my girlfriend in Moscow.”
I sit back to listen, tossing in encouraging questions here and there as he opens up about leaving the love of his life. Apparently, she wasn’t as sure as he was that they were fated to be together and had turned down his proposal. She was also a couple of years older than him. He goes on, detailing this paragon of beauty and virtue, and like a good disciple, I put aside my nausea and try to be a friend. At least I can empathize with his pain.
When the kettle whistles, I pour water over a teabag for him and fill my mug with just water. He makes fun of me, but only lightly.