On My Knees

by Periel Aschenbrand

  Why, indeed, would we be headed toward Tel Aviv? Roy didn’t live in Tel Aviv. He lived right outside of Tel Aviv and actually, coming from the airport, it was in a completely different direction than Tel Aviv. But I had no idea where I was or where we were going and it literally took every fiber of my being to convince myself that my driver was not a mujahideen. After what felt like a lifetime, we finally pulled up in front of Roy’s house and he was downstairs waiting for me to help with my suitcases and to pay the taxi driver. As the taxi drove away, Roy realized that I was shaking and all fucked-up and totally hysterical. He was like, “What’s wrong with you?”

  I told him the whole story about how I didn’t know where we were going and I didn’t have a phone and I thought I was getting kidnapped. By the time I got to the end, we were back in his apartment and he was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe. When he finally caught his breath, he started screaming, “You’re an idiot! You are such an idiot! You are literally the dumbest person on earth! Your taxi driver wasn’t even Arab!”

  Me: “What do you mean, he wasn’t Arab?”

  Roy: “No, he wasn’t Arab! He was Russian! From Georgia!”

  Me: “How the fuck am I supposed to know the difference! I’d like to see you come to New York and discern between someone from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico!”

  Roy: “You’re no smarter than a barnyard animal. Drink this,” he said, as he handed me a glass of araq. “And go to sleep, we have a big day tomorrow.”

  11

  Please Don’t Go

  The second I woke up the next morning Roy started in on me. I was still reeling from all the drama the night before but he was having none of it. When I finally dragged myself into the living room, Roy barely looked up. He said, “You better get your pathetic self ready. We’re going out tonight.”

  I was like, “I honestly don’t think I can take any more excitement.”

  Roy, like me, doesn’t take no very well as an answer. He said, “It’s your last night. We’re going out.”

  I thought for a moment and said, “Fine. Then call Guy and tell him to come with us.”

  Roy raised his eyebrow at me the way only someone who has known you your entire life can raise their eyebrow at you. He didn’t have to say a word and yet I knew exactly what he was asking me, which was, What are you up to?

  I raised my eyebrow back at him and he understood exactly what I was telling him, too, which was, Just do it.

  I didn’t know what was going on with Roy, but I could tell he wanted to get his party on and I certainly wasn’t going to try to stop him. In the meantime, we had a whole day to kill, so reverting back to our childhood antics we devised a plan to scare the shit out of his parents who were under the impression that I was already back in New York.

  Roy walked into his parents’ kitchen and told Talma there was a package at the door and the postman was waiting for her to sign for it. Suspecting nothing, she walked over to the door and of course started yelling to Roy that no one was there, at which point I jumped out from behind a bush and, like a six-year-old, screamed, “Surprise!!! I’m back!”

  Talma got so scared she started screaming herself. Upon hearing all this commotion, Yochanan came running out of the pantry, where he hoards all his food, and began hollering, “Tell me something, what is wrong with you? You are all interrupting me from my work! Can’t everyone see I’m working? Are you mentally retarded?”

  We may have been retarded but Yochanan had plunged well off the deep end. The “work” that we had “interrupted” was him making soup with his “new recipe” out of potato skins.

  Cut to later that night:

  I was in line with Roy and a few of his friends waiting to get into some club in Tel Aviv and I was less than impressed. To begin with, I don’t like waiting in line for anything. Ever. I waited in lines to get into the Limelight when it was the coolest nightclub on the planet—when I was sixteen. So waiting in line to get into some shithole club in the Middle East at age thirty-three was not my idea of a good time. Suddenly Guy shows up. He walks right up to me, looks me up and down, and says, “You look great.”

  I very uncharacteristically felt my face go red.

  The club was deafeningly loud and completely packed. We were standing near a speaker and I felt like my eardrum was about to blow out and it was so crowded you could hardly move. I shouted, “Can we please get the fuck out of here?”

  Guy took my hand and led me to the exit and everyone else we were with followed suit. I thought, Finally some assertiveness. When we got outside, he just shook his head and said, “That was pathetic.”

  I liked that he was willing to leave the club just because I wanted to but I also liked that he knew it was lame. I started to think he was sexy again and by the time we arrived at our next destination, I basically had one goal, which was to have sex with Guy that night. I figured if all went well, I would go home with him that night, get back to Roy’s to finish packing, and still have enough time to spend a couple of quality hours on the beach before I went to the airport. The bar was much more intimate than the club so that was good, and Guy was finally talking to me but he was still pretty shy, which was grating on my nerves. I was on the clock, after all. I had a flight in twelve hours and had absolutely no qualms about having a quickie in the bar bathroom.

  After a couple of hours, though, it was painfully obvious that nothing was happening and just as I started to lose my patience with him, someone accidentally knocked over a barstool. It landed right on his big toe, which promptly turned blue. I could tell he was in a lot of pain and I ran over to the bar to get him some ice. After I inspected his toe to make sure it didn’t need to be amputated, I went back to the bar, ordered another drink, and thought to myself, This is fucking ridiculous. How hard do I have to work to get into this guy’s pants?

  Apparently, my Nurse Betty act was effective because next thing I knew Guy was standing right next to me. And when I say right next to me, I mean he was practically on top of me. He shifted around a little bit before he said, “You should come over tomorrow night and let me cook you dinner.”

  I stared at him, which seemed to make him nervous because he started to backtrack and said, “Or, if you want, you and um, Roy can come over. Or, um, you know, just you.”

  I looked at him dead in the eyes and said, “I’m supposed to get on a plane tomorrow night. Is it really worth it to stay in Israel just to have dinner with you?”

  Guy returned my stare and said, “You’re a big girl. You can make that decision by yourself.”

  I liked that answer. Most men are intimidated by me, which is so boring I can hardly begin to tell you. I respected a man who could spar with me. I said, “I know I’m a big girl and I can make that decision by myself. But that wasn’t the question. The question was: Is it really worth it to stay in this country just to have dinner with you?”

  Without flinching, Guy said, “Clearly.”

  I liked that answer even more.

  I figured, all things being equal, really, what did I have to lose?

  Roy drove Guy home and when he got out of the car, he gave me a kiss on the cheek and it took everything in my power not to behave like a complete whore and just take my underwear off and follow him up to his apartment.

  I spent the better part of the next day packing and trying to figure out what underwear to wear and whether to wear a bra for my rendezvous with Guy later that evening. I finally decided on a pair of black lace underwear and a matching bra.

  Then I took a shower. This may seem very straightforward but it’s not. Taking a shower in Israel, which is essentially in the middle of the desert and where water is precious and scarce, is different than taking a shower in America. Taking a shower in Israel entails flipping a switch and heating the water, which comes from a tank, then you have to wait for the water to heat up and the whole thing is a fucking procedur
e. The rule is to use as little water as you can and get in and out as quickly as humanly possible. This was particularly challenging because I was trying to shave not only my legs, my armpits, and my bikini line but also inside my ass, which is a delicate operation as one may well imagine. I understand that many women in the postindustrialized West wax this part of their body but I can’t do that because I get terrible ingrown hairs and rashes and then my asshole itches for weeks, and it just doesn’t work. And I haven’t ever had laser so I don’t know anything about that. What I do know is that when I shave the inside of my ass, I have to bend over and put my head in between my legs like how a cat licks its own genitals to make sure I get a clean shave while simultaneously making sure not to slice off my anus.

  It took forever in the confines of Roy’s small shower and with the shitty water pressure but I was finally satisfied. I got out of the shower, pranced around in front of the mirror a little bit, and thought, You are one sexy bitch.

  It occured me as I was putting my makeup on in the bathroom of Roy’s house about an hour before Guy was meant to come pick me up that I had butterflies in my stomach. I realized I was going on my first real date in ten years.

  I was so nervous that I threw up.

  Guy, for his part, didn’t seem nervous at all. He smelled delicious and he looked adorable enough to eat alive. Israel may be very sophisticated in terms of weaponry, excellent food, and great wine, but they are about fifteen years behind New York in terms of fashion and style. I’m terribly snotty when it comes to clothes, but even I had to admit that his outfit was pretty cute. He was wearing a black T-shirt, Levi’s, and Pumas. It wasn’t the height of avant-garde fashion but it worked.

  His apartment, on the other hand, was another story entirely. It was very clean, so that was a good thing. But that was pretty much the only good thing. There was the couch, which should have been set on fire, but that was nothing compared to the terrible excuse for a painting that was hanging above the couch. Then there was a whole bunch of trinkets that I had to control myself not to put in the trash. In short order, pretty much everything in the apartment needed to go directly into the garbage. But instead of dismissing him for it, for some strange reason, I thought, These are all things that can be changed. I’m generally much less forgiving in these areas, but I reminded myself that I didn’t come to redecorate. I came to get laid.

  And because I came to get laid, I wasn’t actually expecting to eat dinner. Which is to say that I was not only astonished but also mildly horrified to discover that not only had Guy actually cooked dinner, but he had prepared a five-course gourmet meal. Every time I thought we were done eating, he brought another dish: skewered shrimp, couscous, fresh figs stuffed with Roquefort cheese, grilled eggplant, red snapper. It was like the last fucking supper.

  Don’t get me wrong. I was thoroughly impressed with his cooking skills and I ate like a pig. But I live in Manhattan, where there are plenty of good restaurants. And although I gorged myself, I had not rearranged my travel plans for a bowl of hummus.

  This is what I was thinking as I brought dishes to the kitchen when Guy said to me, “You know what?”

  And I was like, “What?”

  And he said, “You’re really pretty.”

  I was like, “Thank you.”

  And he goes, “No, I mean you’re really, really pretty.”

  And then, out of absolutely nowhere, he kissed me.

  It was the craziest, most intense kiss I had ever experienced in my life. The room was spinning. I felt like I was in a k-hole or ODing on ecstasy. I mean it was so fucking crazy I couldn’t tell if I was just really horny or if I just peed in my pants. (Luckily it turned out to be the former.)

  That night, we had what I can only describe as seriously the most incredible sex I have ever had in my life. Dude knew how to fuck. I mean, listen, some guys have no idea how to fuck and some guys know how to fuck and then some guys really know how to fuck. And Guy fell into the last category. And let’s be clear here. I’d been around the block a few times (more than a few times, really) and even though my recent track record was kind of spotty, I’d had my fair share of great lovers. Or at least I thought I had. I didn’t even know you could have sex like this.

  It was so good that in a totally unprecedented move I broke my cardinal rule and instead of bolting I spent the night. I have never been big on sleepovers with people I just met. Sex is one thing. Waking up next to a stranger with bad breath is quite another story. And even though I couldn’t help feeling like I was on borrowed time, I felt oddly calm. Or perhaps I felt oddly calm precisely because I felt like I was on borrowed time. Normally I would have been in and out of there as fast as humanly possible so as not to form any irrational bonds with a virtual stranger. Just because we’re fucking doesn’t mean we’re friends and I’m not big on formalities. But all my rules seemed to have gone straight out the window with Guy.

  Instead of bailing, the next morning I went to brunch with him. If that weren’t bad enough, we went to this ridiculously romantic restaurant overlooking the sea. This was completely out of character for me. I go to brunch with Hanna and Uncle Bark, not with men I pick up in bars. Beyond that, instead of packing, which is what I should have been doing, I was drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice while staring out at the Mediterranean. I was totally lost in my thoughts when Guy jolted me back to reality: “We should figure something out.”

  I was like, “What do you mean?”

  He said, “You know, between Tel Aviv and New York.”

  Whoa. As I was thinking, He has obviously lost his mind. A man with two hearing aids came up to our table trying to hawk us his wares. He had a bunch of gadgets and trinkets—pens, key chains, magnets—and I shook my head to communicate, “Thanks, but no thanks. The fact that you can’t hear is not going to manipulate me into buying a tchotchke from you.”

  Israelis are generally a pushy bunch and, apparently, deaf Israelis were no exception. He put a magnet on our table despite my protests. I was about to mouth no, but Guy gave him a few shekels and picked up the magnet and placed it in front of me.

  On it was a drawing of a hand, configured in American Sign Language. The shape of which was almost a W. Above the hand, something was written in Hebrew. Below the hand, something was written in English. While my spoken Hebrew is pretty good, my reading skills aren’t so hot, so I wasn’t sure that I had read what I thought I had read. My eyes darted to the bottom of the magnet, where there was no possible way to misread what was written in American English. It said, I LOVE YOU.

  I love you?

  I love you?

  I didn’t dare say a word, but what I was thinking was, Dude is bugging.

  Back in the car, on the way back to his place, Guy started singing KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go” in his hilarious accent. I was laughing but when we pulled up to his building, he stopped and with his body he pushed my body up against the wall and looked at me in a way that felt like his eyes were about to bore a hole straight through my head. He said, “I haven’t felt like this in a very, very long time. Seriously. Stay. Stay one more day.”

  My head started spinning and I didn’t know what was going on. All the hormones and adrenaline and I don’t know—the whole thing was just so fucking crazy. I wasn’t even supposed to be in Israel let alone getting laid, never mind getting caught up in some love affair. If anything, I had planned for a casual one-night stand—a plan that had clearly gone terribly awry.

  In the end, the decision seemed so obvious. I figured, What’s one more day?

  And I stayed.

  Loathe as I was to admit it, it did feel like there was really something there, even beyond the mind-blowing sex. And since none of this actually felt real, I was completely uninhibited, without a care in the world. Being with Guy was so easy—granted almost everything is easy when you’re on vacation—but it was more than that. We had just
met but I felt like I had known him my entire life. There was something about being with him that made me feel very at home. Part of it, I think, had to do with the fact that he was Israeli and that although we were culturally very different I felt connected to him. I couldn’t really explain or understand it, but I also trusted him implicitly. I was completely and totally myself. And he was in complete and total awe of me.

  I told him about my life in New York and what I did and all the places I had lived and about Noam and why we broke up and it was pretty clear that he thought I was out of my fucking mind and also he’d never come across anyone like me in his entire life. I was a total novelty. It was totally obvious he adored me.

  And I liked him, too. I mean the last thing I was looking for was a boyfriend, let alone one who lived on another continent, but he was starting to grow on me. He was the perfect combination of gentle and tough. He was really funny and he was really smart. And very fucking sexy.

  In between fucking and eating, we went to the beach. Everything looks good when you’re in the Mediterranean Sea but while I was standing with Guy in the water, with his arms around me, I was literally in bliss. Just for that very moment, I knew that if I never saw Guy again (and I pretty much figured I wouldn’t) all of my suffering over the past year had been worth it. Looking out into the infiniteness of the water, it was almost inconceivable to think that life could be so painful and so blissful all at once.

  And just like that it was twenty-four hours later and it was time to say good-bye, for real. A gentleman until the end, Guy drove me to the airport, where we had a tearful parting. At least I was tearful. Guy was stoic, exhibiting the typically tough exterior of the Israeli male. Years of war and death and violence and living in a place where at any moment someone could detonate himself does that to people I imagined.

  And although he didn’t say much, his silence spoke volumes. Plus, the trademark twinkle in his eyes was all but gone. I was trying to keep it together but I was really kind of a mess. I attempted to compose myself as I handed the woman behind the counter my passport and my ticket. She looked at my passport, looked at me, and looked back down at my passport. Then she looked at my ticket and looked at me—and started laughing. I was in no mood for games. I was like, “Is there something funny that I’m missing? Why are you laughing?”