She called Friday at 8:08 pm. He couldn’t pick up the phone because it was the Sabbath, but it was their pre-arranged signal for him to come out to get her.<\/p>\n
He wouldn’t get to listen to her message until motzi Shabbos: "Hi, did you order an escort? I’m outside. I can’t get in. Will you come out and get me? I need to get paid. I want to do my job."<\/p>\n
He walked through the darkness to her car.<\/p>\n
She was fresh from dinner at the boss’s house.<\/p>\n
She sat in her car and applied gloss to her lips.<\/p>\n
He stood by his gate and waited. She kept applying gloss and checking herself out in the mirror.<\/p>\n
He could wait no more and crossed the street to her.<\/p>\n
She took her time getting out of the car and then she was in his arms.<\/p>\n
It was dark out. He didn’t see anybody but her.<\/p>\n
The hug went on and on and then they released and he led her inside the gate.<\/p>\n
Once in the hovel, they embraced.<\/p>\n
"What type of gloss did you put on your lips?" he asked.<\/p>\n
"Why don’t you find out?" she said.<\/p>\n
He kissed her and it was sweet and he let his lips linger on hers.<\/p>\n
How many times had he hugged her in a perfunctory manner? How often had he ignored her completely and rushed on to other things, to the food she’d brought?<\/p>\n
He would not make those mistakes again.<\/p>\n
He was going to let it linger.<\/p>\n
"Let’s lie down," he said. He threw off his clothes and reached for her.<\/p>\n
She kicked off her shoes and put down her purse.<\/p>\n
She sat down on his chair and unbuttoned her pants and waved her legs in the air and said, "I need your help."<\/p>\n
He slid her jeans off and then her top. Then he led to his bed.<\/p>\n
"Gut shabbos!" he said.<\/p>\n
Their conversation went past midnight.<\/p>\n
"That was the best talk we’ve ever had," she said.<\/p>\n
She was exhausted but enjoyed his nattering on about his first experiences in Orthodox shuls, his first deceptions, his failures and fears, and eventual triumph.<\/p>\n
She began to purr. And then she sighed. She groaned and tossed and turned.<\/p>\n
He took himself to the foot of the bed and put down his yoga mat and covered it with a towel and tried to sleep alone.<\/p>\n
His feet ached. They felt swollen and hot. They would not lie comfortably on top of each other.<\/p>\n
He felt itchy and feared the hives were coming back.<\/p>\n
He was exhausted and yet could not sleep.<\/p>\n
He could never sleep these days until after 2.am.<\/p>\n
Near 3 a.m., he came back to her bed. She embraced him, fitting her body to his.<\/p>\n
"We could put a towel down," he said.<\/p>\n
"But I’m impure!" she protested. "I don’t want to make you impure."<\/p>\n
"I don’t care," he said.<\/p>\n
She laughed. She’d triumphed over his Orthodox Judaism yet again.<\/p>\n
"What did you do last Yom Kippur?" he asked.<\/p>\n
"I went to a movie and then to dinner," she said.<\/p>\n
"Do you want to walk with me around the hood?" he asked.<\/p>\n
"I don’t know. That wouldn’t be easy for me. It would bring up all sorts of things."<\/p>\n
"Yom Kippur," he sighed. "I love to walk around the hood. It’s one of those rare times when I feel like the spiritual dimension is more real than the physical one."<\/p>\n
"I feel that way most of the time," she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She called Friday at 8:08 pm. He couldn’t pick up the phone because it was the Sabbath, but it was their pre-arranged signal for him to come out to get her. He wouldn’t get to listen to her message until … Continue reading