Mrs. Fletcher

by Tom Perrotta

two people sharing the same address but not much else, exchanging the minimum daily requirement of information, mostly, on her son’s side, in the form of grudging monosyllables and irritable grunts.

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He could be a pretty slippery customer when he needed to be; it was another trait he’d inherited from his father, a fellow master of denial and evasion.

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The divorce had left her with a permanently guilty conscience that made it almost impossible for her to stay mad at her son or hold him accountable for his actions.

Huh

Was it any wonder that he didn’t always treat other people with the kindness and consideration they deserved?

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He’d toughened up over time—his muscles turned wiry and his eyes got hard and the picture disappeared—but something had gone out of him in the process, all the boyish softness and vulnerability that had touched her so deeply. He just wasn’t as nice a person as he used to be—not

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and she couldn’t forgive herself for letting that happen, for not knowing how to protect him, or how to fix what was broken.

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Eve knew, was as simple as it was embarrassing: she’d been watching too much porn, and it had infected her imagination, making her hyper-aware of the sexual possibilities embedded in the most innocent situations. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so pathetic.

Ha

The end of reluctance. When it was good, you could forget you were watching porn and accept it, if not as the truth, then at least as a glimpse of a better world than the one you lived in, a world where everyone secretly wanted the same thing, and no one failed to get it. *

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Just the chance to leave your old self behind. To take all your mistakes and regrets and erase them from the story. Who wouldn’t want that?”

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The Gender Commandments were endless, once you started thinking about them, and they were enforced 24/7 by a highly motivated volunteer army of parents, neighbors, teachers, coaches, other kids, and total strangers—basically, the whole human race.

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partners more wisely or, if need be, to opt for celibacy and self-respect over empty sex and the self-hating sadness that came with it.

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You couldn’t turn away from the truth just because it ripped your guts out. You had to look cruelty and injustice in the eye, to acknowledge the humanity of people less fortunate than you, and accept your obligation to help improve their lives. It was the least you could do.

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She was all wound up, her senses on high alert. It didn’t help that she was also super-horny, a condition that afflicted her whenever she slept in a strange place—a hotel, her grandmother’s house, a friend’s apartment in the city, a bare-bones Airbnb, a tent in the woods, even a sleeper car on a train, which was something she’d experienced exactly once in her life. Being in a bed that wasn’t her own instantly flooded her brain with thoughts of sex.

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If you’re thinking about doing something you won’t be able to confess to your spouse or best friend, then DON’T DO IT! YOU ALREADY KNOW IT’S WRONG!

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