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I looked around his small kitchen. Spotless; even the linoleum floor shone (I could leave my Minwax at home). In the center stood a butcher-block island. Above it hung an iron pot rack.
“Did this kitchen come like this?”
“No, sweet girl. I built the island and installed the rack.”
“Wow.” I was so impressed. I floated into the living room—leather couch and glass coffee table opposite a huge plasma TV screen.
I continued to look around. On the floor was an exquisite multicolored kilim. Two Kashmiri shawls hung over the entrance to his bedroom, a decorating touch one would expect to see at the famous Shuk, the open-air market in Jerusalem. I closed my eyes, envisioning street mystics, hookah smoke, dromedaries. I was comingling cultures, but I didn’t care—I enjoyed the feeling.
“Can I go in?”
“Be my guest.”
I entered his bedroom expecting a canopied bed, a magic carpet, potted cobras at the feet. You’re an idiot, I laughed to myself, taking in his frameless queen-sized bed with its conservative navy-blue duvet. A photo atop his oak bureau caught my attention: a group of schoolboys, all dressed in white, white skullcaps on their heads. Amir was the third schoolboy from the left, his green eyes traveling through the black-and-white print straight into the present.
“Where were you here, with the other little boys?” I shouted into the kitchen.
“That was madrasah. It’s where I studied.” Madrasah, like midrash, the Hebrew word for study. Where were the little girls? I guessed they were schooled completely separately.
I had been sent to yeshiva at an early age, to learn the customs and traditions of Judaism. The school decreed modesty at all costs: girls should wear ankle-length broomstick skirts and shirt cuffs to the wrist. We were instructed to wear sneakers with our skirts. Yeshiva was where I developed my early sense of style, a perfect setup for private middle-school derision. Three times a day, class was interrupted for prayer. Girls sat upstairs in the chapel, separated from the boys below (boys were allowed to be closer to the Torah, closer to God). I used to pick little pieces of lint from my white stockings, lean over the balcony, drop them, and watch them land on top of a boy’s yarmulke. I took great delight in this little game; it got me through the boring prayers whose meanings I did not comprehend.
Amir’s school seemed not so different. If I stayed with him, would I be forced to wear the broomstick skirt again? If we married, would I convert? One of us would have to. Would I be willing to go all the way and wear a hijab, elders stuffing my unruly blond wisps under a shawl? I pictured Nasty Circulator restraining me, forcing my rebellious hair into the sterile bouffant cap...
“Dinner’s ready!” he called.
I felt the slick mahogany of his table under my palms as I sat down to eat.Amir is modern.He emerged from the kitchen. How could the sight of a man cooking be so sexy? I never saw men cook in my household. My mother either picked up take-out or made a bizarre attempt at being domestic. I recalled the time she instituted the Great Potato Potpourri as she converted potatoes into a different dish for every day of the week: baked, scalloped, fried, mashed, and pureed, plus potato pies and potato skins.
Tonight, for the first time, I was experiencing the sensuality of food, a delight for the senses.
Brow moist, green eyes sparkling, his full long frame accentuated by the T-shirt, I could almost see that red Mick Jagger mouth salivating, tongue reaching, waggling. Amir placed some lamb on my plate with his surgical hands and sat down next to me.
I took a bite and was transported. “What is in this?”
“Lamb, masala, the usual . . .”
“And this?” I pointed to a bowl of sauce, creamy and minty looking.
“That is raita, to neutralize the spice.” He handed me the other small bowl of something orange and rich. “Here. Chutney made from mango and tamarind fruit.”
Amir glanced at his food, took a cursory bite, adding nothing from either bowl, and looked up at me. Was he the type of cook who just enjoyed the process and didn’t care about eating? “What is it?” I asked. “You’re not hungry?” How could he be so flippant about hisownculinary masterpiece?
“The food is fine. It’s you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
He pushed aside his plate, and mine, and the two bowls, then turned to me and placed his hands on my hips, lifting me effortlessly onto the table in front of him. My legs coiled around his body, skirt riding up to my waist. He kissed me, and I tasted the whole meal, our whole future. I kissed him back, rolling my tongue inside his mouth in homage to his T-shirt. The pulsations in my groin grew stronger. He slipped a finger under my panties. “You are soaking.”
I nodded.
Amir lifted me off the table and threw me down on his couch.
He pulled off my panties, separated my legs firmly, moved his head down, found my clitoris, and began licking. His tongue circled ravenously, relentlessly, my every nerve ending on fire—even my feet began to feel hot. I looked down and saw those emerald-flecked eyes peering up at me.No one anywhere else exists right now.Where did he get those eyes? Had a rogue European run loose in his lineage?
I ran my fingers through his thick black hair, and my arm brushed one of my own erect nipples. I felt what I can only describe as thatitch—he hit just the right spot and he worked it, over and over and over and over again, until I couldn’t take another instant of thealmostmoment. My entire body opened like a lotus and the flood emerged. I came, loud, unapologetic. Perhaps the neighbors would think it was the plasma screaming. He hit it again, and again, and again, Fourth of July fireworks finale, all colors bursting into a black sky, infinite, unending.
I felt myself sizzling slowly down, in the resolution phase of the release, beads of sweat dripping into the nape of my neck. I cradled Amir’s head in my arms. “I’ve destroyed your couch.”
