At other apartment parties, everyone took their coats off and left them in the bedroom, then congregated in the living room. But tonight, the bed was going to be put to better use. And so, for that matter, was the living room.
There were six other guys there so far besides Simon and Uri. Simon knew three of them from shul – Howard, Stanley and Benji – although he’d never seen any of them naked (or nearly naked) before. They hadn’t been among the guys he mentally undressed that night Uri gave him the invite, but they didn’t look bad without their clothes on, just sort of average: dark-haired, dark-eyed, Slavic Jews who didn’t get much sun.
Of the rest of them, there was one guy, Darren, who Simon had met before at a gay Yeshiva dance. He was tan like Uri, but his body seemed hairless. It was only later, when Simon was closer, that he realized Darren had shaved it, even his crotch.
The other two guys, Ezra and Joshua, Uri knew from when he lived uptown and went to the gay congregation there. Joshua was a redhead whose arms looked too thin. Not at all Simon’s type, but then he never understood the fascination many men seemed to have for redheads. Ezra, on the other hand, was the kind of boy who might catch his eye on the street, with his dark eyes and goatee and v-shaped torso. It was a surprise to Simon to learn that Ezra was shy and unsure of himself, sort of nerdy, hiding behind his glasses the way Simon felt that he, too, did quite often.
Everyone was in their late twenties or early thirties. And they all seemed nervous or unsure of what they were or should be doing. Everyone except Uri, the mastermind of this little get-together, who walked about with complete comfort, unconcerned about his near nudity and the sex that was on everyone’s mind. He played the host but also seemed completely at ease, chatting with his friends as if this were any ordinary get-together.
Since few people knew each other, no one really knew what to talk about.
“It’s funny,” Howie said. “My mother is always after me, since all my boyfriends are blond and blue-eyed. If you have to have sex with other men, she asks, couldn’t you at least find a nice Jewish boy? And here I am, in a roomful of guys she’d approve of, only not about to do anything she’d approve of! ”
It was the wrong thing to say, really, Simon thought. No one wanted to be reminded of what their parents would think of what they were about to do, for all that everyone there was eager for it all to begin. But what would happen when they ran into these men again in their regular lives? How could Simon ever go back to shul if he saw Stanley, tonight, with a stranger’s fingers up his butt? He would never be able to see these men again without remembering what they looked like naked.
The silence stretched on uncomfortably.
Darren told a joke: “So this kid comes home from school and says, ‘Ma, Ma, I got a part in the school play!’ And the mother says, ‘That’s nice, dear, what part did you get?’ So the kid tells her, ‘I got the part of the Jewish husband.’ The mother stops what she’s doing and looks at her son. ‘What’s the matter,’ she says, ‘you couldn’t get a speaking role?’”
Everyone laughed.
The buzzer rang. All noise stopped suddenly and everyone turned to stare at the door, even though whoever it was had to come all the way upstairs before they got to the door. They were all wondering the same things, Simon knew: would it be someone familiar or a stranger? What if this new guy was ugly? What if he was unbearably cute?
Even though only Uri knew everyone there, it was like they were all tired old regulars at some bar, just waiting for fresh meat to show up. Was that how things would happen: one time someone would come in and catch someone’s eye and make their move, breaking the ice for everyone else to start having sex? Who would be the first to do something?
Uri looked through the peephole of the door, then opened it. Simon could see from where he was that there were two people on the other side of the door frame.
“Aaron,” Uri said, “what a pleasant surprise. You should have told me you were bringing someone.”
“It was sort of a last-minute thing,” Aaron said. “Jorge, meet my friend Uri. Uri, this is Jorge.” He smiled at Jorge, then looked back at Uri and winked. “We met at Escuelita last night.”
This was one of those moments of sex party etiquette. Or perhaps simply party etiquette. What to do if someone brings someone who hasn’t been invited? At a normal party, this sort of behaviour is usually more forgivable.
Uri looked over Aaron’s friend and evidently decided he made the cut. He invited them both in and led them to the kitchen to unclothe.
The whole nature of the party seemed to change with Jorge there. It was the presence of foreskin in a roomful of circumcized gay men. It was the presence of a non-Jew
Simon remembered how his uncle Morty used to always joke, “Shiksas are for practice,” whenever he asked if Simon had a girlfriend yet.
Simon didn’t doubt that this sheggitz would get as much practice as he wanted tonight, since every guy there seemed to be utterly entranced by Jorge’s smooth dark skin as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen – to show off? – and peeled out of his clothes.
Once stripped down to their Calvins and 2(x)ist briefs and holding their cocktails, they came back into the other room. There were ten men now crowded into the small area, sitting or standing around awkwardly.
“Hey, we’ve got a minyan now,” Howie said. You could tell he was happy to be the first one to notice.
“Actually, we don’t,” Ezra said. And technically he was right; Jorge didn’t count.
But that was for prayer. For a sex party, ten bodies – regardless of their religion – was enough critical mass to get things going. Uri circulated, introducing people and drawing them into conversation. Not everyone could fit comfortably in the living room – at least, there weren’t enough places to sit. So some of the guys had drifted into the bedroom, where they’d started to get it on while no one – at least, not everyone – was looking.
Of course, the moment one of the living room group noticed, everyone rushed to the doorway of the bedroom to watch.
Somehow this didn’t seem to be the right sex party etiquette, but it didn’t stop anyone.
Simon watched the back of Joshua’s head bobbing up and down before Stanley’s crotch, as if Josh were davening, and perhaps this was like prayer for Joshua, lost in a trance of cock-sucking.
With all of them crowded there at the door, growing hard from their voyeurism if they weren’t already, it didn’t take long for the rest of the guys to start touching one another as well. A hand on thigh or belly, fingers cold with nervousness. A hand cupping an ass cheek through the fabric of his underwear. Simon didn’t really know who was who but it didn’t matter. His heart beat faster, he felt a tight constriction in his chest from nervousness, then he took a deep breath and relaxed into the sensation of his ass in some man’s palm. He thought for a moment back to that bathhouse in Puerto Rico, where even though he’d wanted to he hadn’t done anything except in the concealing darkness of the back room, as if sex were something too shameful to be seen. Among these ten men, these other gay Jews gathered together for the worship of the body, he no longer felt guilty about his desperate yearnings for sex with other men, as he had on the walk over here and on so many occasions previously. He looked around him, at the men who were so like him, now lost in their pleasure, the giving and the receiving of it, and he smiled. He was not alone, and he was glad to be part of something bigger than himself, this minyan, which for him is what it was even if one of the men was not Jewish. A minyan of desire, men who no longer needed to congregate in clandestine secret to worship, but who could love and pray without shame.
“Amen,” he whispered, and pressed himself back against the man who cupped his ass, no longer holding himself apart.
Glossary
Daven: The ritual bending of the knees during prayer that causes the body to sway back and forth.
Lamed vavnik: The term for the thirty-six people who are so pure of heart that God does not again destro
y the world with flood or fire or so forth. Because no one knows who these thirty-six are, Jews are taught to be kind and offer hospitality to all, in case they are one of the lamed vavnik.
Minyan: The minimum number of adult males (ten) necessary to maintain a temple and pray.
Shiksa: A derogatory term for a non-Jewish girl.
Sheggitz: The male form of shiksa.
Shul: The Hebrew word for temple.
Siddur: A holy prayer book.
Tallis: A ceremonial scarf.
Rebecca’s Place, 1978
Susan St Aubin
Hal’s stomach growled loudly as he and Evelyn followed her lover, Rebecca, up the stairs to her apartment. Now he was annoyed rather than excited, as he had been before Evelyn had decided they should all leave their bed for Rebecca’s. Something about a jewel Rebecca usually wore in her pierced tongue, which she had taken out and left at home. Evelyn wanted her to wear that gold frog with tiny rubies for eyes. It made no sense to him. Rebecca had even brought Chinese food for them, which Evelyn had taken out of their oven, where it was keeping warm, and packed back into the shopping bag she now carried. He felt like he was in a cave when they got inside Rebecca’s place – the ceiling seemed so low he ducked reflexively. Once Rebecca switched on the light, it wasn’t as low as he thought, but when he saw the loft bed he realized he probably wouldn’t be able to sit up straight there.
“I demand food now,” Hal said. Since this seemed to be an evening of demands, why not make his known? He was ready to spank Evelyn if she didn’t agree; in fact, imagining the feel of his palm smacking her flesh excited him. It could, he thought, work as well the other way around, with Evelyn feeling her flesh smack against his palm. As you hit, you are hit. Or maybe Rebecca should be the one to spank Evelyn; she needed retribution for this sudden change in plans, as well as for the spanking Evelyn had given her back at their place. He surprised himself with this sudden desire to watch Evelyn be punished by another woman, who would also be punished by the flesh smack-back, but the Herald, as Evelyn liked to call his cock, was twitching as if He knew this scene and was eager to get on with it. Hal himself had another hunger that was more pressing. He grabbed the bag of food from Evelyn and began putting the lukewarm containers on Rebecca’s tiny kitchen table.
“We should heat them,” said Evelyn, turning on the oven while Rebecca lit the gas heater in the corner.
Hal reached over to swat Evelyn’s rear. She’d set the stage: what she gave Rebecca, he could give her. He was satisfied with the sting of her ass on his palm.
“No time,” he said, opening a random container, which seemed to be chicken in some sort of sauce. “I want it cold. Now.” He wolfed it down until his mouth and throat were on fire.
Evelyn handed him a glass of water. “That looks like Kung Pao chicken, Rebecca’s favourite. North Chinese, hotter than a curry.”
The water actually seemed to increase the burning sensation at first, although as he drank, his mouth gradually became numb.
Rebecca was eating fried rice out of another container while Evelyn patiently waited. “Aren’t you hungry?” Rebecca asked her.
“Nope,” Evelyn responded. “First things first. Rebecca, go put your gold frog back in your tongue.”
Rebecca obediently disappeared into her bathroom, where Hal heard her brushing her teeth, then gargling. In the long silence that followed, Hal imagined her wrestling the frog into her tongue. He couldn’t quite understand how it was fastened in there. The whole idea of tongue piercing made him gag.
Evelyn opened another container. “Mmmm. Mongolian beef,” she said as she nibbled. “The trick is to take very small bites.” She passed the box to Hal, who, his mouth still numb from the chicken, shook his head.
Rebecca came out of the bathroom and stuck out her tongue. “See?” she announced. “It’s in.”
Hal felt uneasy looking at it, but Evelyn poked him in the ribs. “You’ll like it, really.” She gathered the food containers and stuck them in the oven, then stepped over to the cushions piled in a corner beside the loft bed, and took off her jeans and sweater.
Hal, seeing a flash, turned to find Rebecca holding a camera, which made a strange grinding noise as a picture slid out of the front. Of course, a Polaroid, ideal for sexy pictures which no photo-processing employee would have to see.
“Perfect,” said Rebecca. “I got a great back shot, Evelyn.”
Hal watched the photograph gradually turn from grey to shades of brown and pink as Evelyn’s ass surfaced, a process that was, he thought, a bit like watching someone come to life. Caught in the act of slipping off her jeans, she seemed real in this picture, even though she was playing a role Hal wasn’t familiar with.
Then, another flash as Rebecca took Hal’s picture looking at the picture of Evelyn.
“Clothes off, everyone,” Evelyn ordered, clapping her hands like a teacher.
Rebecca handed Hal the camera so he could take a picture as soon as she was undressed. He carefully framed a full frontal shot of her with one hand on her hip, her mouth closed to hide the frog. Then Evelyn grabbed the camera while he undressed, and took a shot of him and Rebecca sitting side by side on the cushions, knees modestly held to their chests.
“Now stick out your tongue,” she told Rebecca, moving in closer to capture the frog on film. “Look at her, Hal. Look at the frog.”
Hal wondered what they would think of all this when they saw the pictures in twenty years. He saw the flash, watched Evelyn put the camera down, then felt her hand confidently stroke the Herald, and wondered why He rose to meet the lips of this stranger, formerly his lover. Hal felt left behind. He’d barely had time to get to know Rebecca, and now even Evelyn seemed unknowable.
Flash. Rebecca got a close shot of Evelyn’s mouth around the Herald, while Hal blinked in the sudden light. Evelyn sat up, took the camera away from her, then guided the Herald into Rebecca’s mouth. If we’re a triad, thought Hal, then the Herald must be the hypotenuse, the line that ties it all together. I’m the base, Evelyn the right angle, Rebecca the side. My hypotenuse is what everyone wants. Thinking this made him feel less like a bystander. He was the base, in control, the beginning, and the end; he would conquer that frog. He felt the Herald thrust deeper into Rebecca’s soft and willing mouth, and was relieved to sense the jewel as a small but intriguing firmness. His eyes closed as he listened to the whirr of the camera as Evelyn took pictures.
Rebecca felt her tongue, weighted with the frog, as something apart from her with a life of its own as it danced over Hal’s penis, which didn’t seem a bit bothered by the worried look on Hal’s face. Her tongue kept going, increasing the pressure of the frog as it slipped over and around the cock. She liked the notion of separate body parts functioning at will, full of surprises for the main brain/mainframe. She’d picked that word up from Hal, the computer expert: mainframe, the brain of the whole computer system. Suddenly she saw each body as a system, with interconnected yet separating functioning parts, and thought people must have designed computers in their own image. She made her tongue move carefully so as not to injure either the part or the mainframe, and began thinking mathematically about the triangle of Hal, Evelyn and herself. Where would the jewelled frog fit? An angle, or one of the lines connecting the angles? She couldn’t remember the geometric terms, but she knew her jewel was the connection that had first attracted Evelyn to her and, through Evelyn, she’d met Hal. It was Evelyn’s desire for the jewelled frog that had brought them here, to her place; the frog was the connection that held the three angles together.
Evelyn took pictures, framing and creating what she watched. “Take him out of your mouth,” she said, and Rebecca obeyed, laying her tongue, jewelled frog up, beside the pulsing Herald so Evelyn could shoot a picture. “Better let him rest a bit,” Evelyn whispered in her ear, licking the rim. Rebecca lay still a minute, then tentatively kissed the Herald before she sucked him back inside.
Evelyn watched herself, too, wishing for ev
en more distance from her body so she could photograph the three of them. She remembered wanting this, her two lovers together, but that memory felt distant, as if it belonged to someone else. But who would that be? Her, and yet not her. As she watched Hal and Rebecca together, she could recall wanting to eat experience, inhale it, and pictured her past self with each of them. But now these memories frightened her. She put down the camera to rub her palms together, still feeling the sharp slaps they’d given Rebecca’s ass back at home, slaps to her as well as from her, like fire on her hands. She didn’t need any more pictures.
She wanted to be alone with Hal, to kiss him, to hold him, to guide the Herald into herself instead of Rebecca. She wanted Rebecca to vanish. Is this love, she wondered, this act of exclusion? She had always imagined love expanding to include everyone, every experience, but never this contraction to a couple, rotating through the universe together yet always somehow pulling on each other, never completely satisfied, stuck in a claustrophobic sort of balance.
Meanwhile she felt bound to play her part. What was wrong, she decided, was Rebecca, who seemed to be dividing instead of connecting, Rebecca who was not letting her in now to share the Herald, Rebecca who would keep going unless Evelyn pushed her aside. Rebecca was ignoring Evelyn in favour of doing things two by two instead of three.
Hal was amazed at how good Rebecca’s frog actually felt, how warm and smooth yet with a bit of roughness to those ruby eyes that sent the Herald over the top before He knew what hit Him. Rebecca drank hungrily – well, he thought, she must be, late as it was and no real dinner.
She lay down beside him and whispered in his ear, “See? It’s a gentle frog.” She gave one last delicate lap to the Herald, who rolled away, satisfied.
Hal didn’t want to say he’d feared the frog would slice him open, because the Herald, who wasn’t such a coward, had welcomed the frog, as if the two of them belonged together. Hal wanted to be included in his own triangulation of Herald, frog, Hal.
The Mammoth Book of Threesomes and Moresomes Page 16