Elizabeth Kelly entered the yoga studio just before class started. She had already dropped off her daughters, Alexis and Alice, at school. After class, she would head into the magazine where she worked. But right now Elizabeth was looking forward to having an hour to herself.
Yogi Jack sat in lotus position at the front of the room. This was Elizabeth’s first class with him, and she found that he was as handsome as she had been told. His thick, sandy-blond hair was parted to the side, and his features were perfectly proportioned. His hair was cut tight, which made him look boyish although he was clearly in his midforties. He was thin and toned, wearing loose, black Hind pants and a gray-blue Under Armour T-shirt. The outfit was a far cry from the typical male fitness instructor getup of tight shorts and athletic shirts.
He seemed gentle. Elizabeth knew very little about him, but just before class started, she surprised herself by thinking, I would have dated him in college.
The friends who insisted she try Yogi Jack’s class said he began with a short, sobering, yoga-related teaching. He read a quote from Gandhi or Rumi and extrapolated, connecting it to something currently relevant. Jack appeared to be on a high that day; as Elizabeth rolled out her mat, she overheard him say that he was just back from a yoga retreat.
“It’s nice to see all of you again,” he said as he began the class. “And welcome to those of you who are new. As most of you know, I was away running a week-long yoga retreat in Costa Rica. Sixteen women attended. We had a marvelous time.”
Jack went on with what sounded like an infomercial, describing days filled with yoga classes and other physical activities, naps and alone time, and meals of fresh fruit and seafood.
“Nights were spent leisurely at a long dinner table with food prepared for us by a personal chef,” he said. “Even though it was a yoga retreat, there was no shortage of wine with dinner. During my retreats, we create the world we wish we could live in—a world based on giving and receiving love, of trust and of challenging ourselves, of questioning convention and following our hearts. We create strong emotional connections and stay in touch until the next trip, when we can all be together again. I hope some of you will join me next time.”
It was February—freezing. For a group of mothers who’d felt somewhat housebound for months, Jack was describing the Garden of Eden. Elizabeth wasn’t used to instructors like him. He spoke so personally. The instructors she had encountered always kept a kind of ubiquitous distance, especially those she had in Manhattan. It was obvious that Jack wanted to draw his audience in. He wanted to build a following.
Jack scanned the darkened room then, and his eyes settled on her. “You’re new,” he said. Wide-eyed, she obediently nodded up and down like a kindergartener on her first day of school. She blushed.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Elizabeth,” she replied.
“Welcome, Elizabeth,” he said with a smile, amused that his attention embarrassed her. “Are you ready for the movement part of the class to start?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, feeling shy and wanting his eyes off of her.
Yogi Jack taught many different types of yoga—hatha, kripalu, bikram—in several Fairfield County studios and in his own personal studio in Cannondale, but his Wednesday morning class was ashtanga yoga, an often strenuous combination of standing and sitting movements linked to conscious breathing and meditation.
As Elizabeth had been told, Jack’s class had a pleasant, gentle flow to it. Twenty minutes in, she was completely relaxed and in rhythm. Her mind had quieted, and that day’s to-do list was temporarily buried.
Several times during the class, Jack stood behind her and adjusted her position. The adjustments were intended to teach proper alignment and maximize the position while building trust between student and instructor. Other times, when she sat in child’s pose, he laid his hands on her lower spine. Elizabeth felt a complete sense of calm when he touched her back.
She wondered if his touch had some sort of power to it. She wondered if she was having a sexual response. Aside from a massage, it’d been years—more than fifteen years—since anyone other than her husband had touched her in this way. But it was more than the touch. There was something overtly sexual to Jack’s class. She couldn’t place it exactly.
Elizabeth looked at the clock as they neared the end of class. “Last position,” Jack said. “Now it’s time to move to shavasana or ‘stillness.’ Lay on your back. Allow your hands to fall to your sides with your palms up and your feet slightly spread apart. Relax.”
Elizabeth lay down but clasped her hands over her stomach. At that moment, it was the position that felt most comfortable.
“Relax,” he repeated in a whisper just loud enough for his students to hear. “Breathe. You have nowhere to go, nothing to do. Be still. Let go. Let go of who you think you are. Let go of who you think you need to be. Right now you are you. You are not a wife. You are not a mother. You are not a daughter or a sister. You are not an employee. You are who you are at your deepest core—a woman with individual wants and needs. Entertain those wants and needs. Embrace them; don’t stifle them. Open yourself to new possibilities. Think about different ways of living your life.”
Several minutes later, Yogi Jack’s hands touched Elizabeth’s forehead. He massaged it as well as her scalp. She noticed a faint scent of eucalyptus. Without thinking, Elizabeth’s hands started to fall apart and glide to the floor. She was in a pose of complete stillness. For a person who felt guarded most of the time, she was shocked by what felt like submission.
After a few more minutes, the class was instructed to sit up in sukhasana pose. Next, they said the yoga-type “namaste” good-byes. The class was over.
As the women rolled up their mats and put on their shoes, Jack stood in the center of the room.
“I’ll be here for a few minutes if anyone wants to speak with me,” he said. “Please be sure to sign up for my email list. I’ll send you updates to my class schedule and my availability for private sessions.”
Elizabeth was in the corner tying her shoelaces. She watched the rest of the women as they left. A number of them fell into Jack’s arms as he embraced them. One—an attractive, fit woman in her forties—smiled up at him during the hug and gave him a kiss on the lips. He kissed back and smiled. They shared a secret—they were lovers. The woman made a quick exit, and Jack continued on with his overly friendly good-byes.
Another woman approached him and, after a hug, showed him what appeared to be a hip tattoo. Elizabeth wondered how many women in the room were sleeping with him. Then it hit her. She knew why parts of Jack’s class made her feel uneasy. Although the sequence was standard ashtanga yoga, Jack’s version had its own spin.
He structured his classes like sex.
There was a friendly, gentle vibe as the students sat and waited for class to start. When Jack spoke in his intimate way, they mentally opened up. Lights lowered and movement started, which slowly built in intensity as Jack led the class through increasingly challenging poses, adjusting the women throughout. Classic arousing songs played softly. As the movements repeated, the students became heated. Jack added more challenging poses, and the women began lightly perspiring. The climax came during the difficult final pose—a backbend. The class ended with a rest period.
A Google search later revealed that other yoga instructors structured their classes in the same way. There were even students who used these classes as foreplay. This was news to Elizabeth, as she was not seasoned enough to know. What she experienced in Yogi Jack’s class was different, and the entire scene—the talk, the well-run class, the attractive yoga instructor and his groupies—fascinated her.
Elizabeth was so bewitched that it preoccupied her for the rest of the day: during work, when picking up her children from school, and while making dinner. She tried to reach her sister, Abby, to tell her about the class and ask whether she had ever been to one like it.
When she heard her husband’s car pull into the driveway, she ran to the door to greet him. As he entered their home, her hands encircled his waist and pulled him close.
Looking him in the eyes, Elizabeth said, “I need to have sex with you right now.”
Andrew looked surprised.
“I went to this amazing yoga class, and I’ve been incredibly turned on all day,” she continued.
“Yoga?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“A yoga class?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said. “I can’t explain it exactly, but it was a combination of the poses and the music and the dark room and the instructor and his adjustments… I haven’t been able to stop thinking about sex since.”
“His adjustments?” Andrew asked. “A guy?”
“He touches everyone,” she said, “to guide us into the right positions.”
Elizabeth pushed Andrew toward his office. Once inside, she kissed him hard and pulled him close, allowing their bodies to touch, and locked the door behind them. Elizabeth tugged him down to the floor and, while straddling his thighs, started undoing his pants.
Andrew’s mind flashed to the last time she did this to him, during a drunken night on a vacation they took without their kids. Afterward they’d passed out on the beach and were woken by the hotel’s security guard.
Elizabeth slid her underwear off, mounted him, and guided him inside of her. She let out a happy sigh of relief as her daylong desire was satisfied. She rocked, her torso upright, her head tilted back slightly, her eyes closed, grinding against her husband. Andrew watched her.
A male yoga instructor? he thought. They had been married over ten years, and he still wanted her as much as he did the first night they met. But does she? he questioned. Who is she thinking about right now?
As if sensing Andrew’s concern, Elizabeth leaned forward and kissed him. “I missed you today,” she whispered in his ear.
Reassured, Andrew’s hands moved to her waist, encouraging her movements. He wanted her to enjoy this, and he wanted her to initiate it more—with him. As Andrew pushed deeper into her, his mind flooded with endorphins. She missed me today, he thought.
* * *
Later that night, after their children had fallen asleep, Elizabeth was giddy telling Andrew about her yoga experience. “Jack’s handsome, he’s suave, and he’s definitely sleeping with a number of women in the class,” she said as they lay in bed. “All this in conservative, perfect Cannondale. Can you believe it?”
“Absolutely,” Andrew replied. “Remember the personal trainer in Darien who was having affairs with seven married women at the same time? None of them thought he was sleeping with anyone else.”
“I know,” Elizabeth said. “I know. You’re right. It’s no different, but I still find it shocking. And this time I’m not just hearing a story after the fact—I saw how this guy operates firsthand. I can’t wait to tell Abby about him. I’m going to bring her to his class the next time she visits. She’d like him. It’s too bad he doesn’t work in Manhattan. Private sessions with him might be just what she needs to get her mind off Colin.”
“Are you serious?” Andrew responded. “You want to hook your sister up with a lothario within months of her husband’s suicide? How is that a good idea?”
“He would just be a distraction for her,” Elizabeth said. “She’s seasoned and way too smart to fall for him.”
“It’s really an awful idea, Elizabeth,” Andrew said, smiling. “Come to think of it, maybe I should have become a fitness instructor,” he joked. ”Having sex with lonely, beautiful women while someone else pays their bills sounds like a good gig.”
Andrew had a point. Jack enjoyed the physical benefits from these unhappy housewives but dealt with none of the difficult relationships. These women weren’t complaining about their kids to him. They weren’t asking for a new car or a bigger house. They asked for nothing but sex—at least in theory.
Based on what Elizabeth discovered about Jack online after the class—his privileged upbringing, his sailing scholarship, his MBA from Georgetown—he would be prime marriage material for most of the women in his class. Jack’s background allowed his students to feel instantly comfortable with him. His only apparent drawbacks were his relatively newfound status as a yoga instructor and his self-proclaimed rejection of worldly possessions. Those aspects of him didn’t appeal to most of the women who took his classes. They needed someone who could and wanted to support their current lifestyles.
“I enjoyed my homecoming, but aren’t there other yoga teachers you can go to?” Andrew asked Elizabeth, bringing her back to the conversation.
“Yes, there are, and I’ve taken classes with a number of them in town, but his class is exceptionally good,” she responded. “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in him. Oh, guess who takes private sessions with Jack?”
“Who?” Andrew asked.
“Adair Burns!” she said. “He comes to her home every Monday. She’s into partner yoga, which is a very intimate form of body-on-body yoga. They use each other to get the best stretch out of the workout. She said it’s amazing.”
“No partner yoga with Yogi Jack for you,” Andrew responded. “That sounds like a slippery slope.”
“Oh, shut up, Andrew,” joked Elizabeth, though she was aroused just by the thought of it. Looking coyly at her husband, she slipped off her nightie and tugged down his boxers.
Andrew’s eyes brightened. “Round two?” he asked, instantly hard.
“Round two,” she repeated as she slowly ran her hands up his legs and gently took him into her mouth.