Little Stalker

by Jennifer Belle

  “She’s trying to be friends with you,” Isaac said.

  “I just can’t take this,” I said, standing up and bringing my fingers to my temples like a crazy person. I couldn’t believe how loud my voice was. “I am not dating Ivy Vohl. I don’t even want to hear her name again. Ivy Vohl! I can’t take it! Fuck you and fuck Ivy Vohl.”

  I stood up and pushed out onto the sidewalk, gasping for the meat-packing district’s nice fresh air. At a time like this a girl could really use a sister to talk to.

  I walked quickly across Little West 12th Street toward Hudson and stood on the corner, determined not to look behind me, but listening for the sound of running footsteps on the cobblestones, like whoever it was who waited for Paul Revere’s lantern to come in the night. I waited tensely for the light to change and was just about to cross the street when I heard him yell, “Rebekah! ”

  I ignored him and crossed the street. Then he caught up with me. He grabbed my shoulders like a mugger. “Rebekah, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I think you should finish the evening with Ivy Vohl.”

  “You’re crazy,” he said. “We are going to go back to the restaurant now, as humiliating as that may be, so I can pay for our meal. I’m assuming you don’t want coffee and dessert.”

  "That is correct.” I shot my arm up in the air and a cab pulled up within seconds. I would die if I lived in a place where you couldn’t shoot your arm up in the air and hail a cab like a small God.

  “Please, Rebekah, don’t get in that cab. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken Ivy’s call.”

  “No, you shouldn’t’ve.”

  The cabdriver rolled down his window and screamed, “Fuck you,” before driving off without me.

  He took my hand. “I’m sorry,” he said again. I didn’t say anything for a minute and then let him lead me by the hand back to the restaurant. I was relieved he’d been the one to apologize but I still acted mad and waited for him outside.

  When we got home to my apartment, Isaac sat in my gondola drinking a beer he had bought in the deli on Broadway and I sat on my couch from Literary Suicide. He patted the red velvet seat next to him and I got up and stepped into the gondola with him. It was held upright on wooden brackets, but I didn’t know how steady it would be with both of us in it. Once there, I think we both felt a little awkward until we started kissing.

  One thing about Isaac was that he and I had very different kissing styles. I kissed like a normal person and he kissed extra fast, as if we were in the airport and he was about to get on a plane and never see me again.

  Kissing like that in the gondola was making me seasick. I’d had three martinis at dinner, my Absolut limit, and I was spinningly drunk.

  I pulled away from him. “You and I are very different kissers,” I said.

  “I think we do all right.”

  “No, we’re fine,” I said, “just different.”

  “Why? How do I kiss and how do you kiss?” he asked, and from the look on his face, I knew I was rowing dangerous waters.

  “Well, I kiss sort of regular, and you kiss sort of . . . fast.”

  “What does that mean, kiss fast?” he asked, defensively.

  “I kiss like I’m from New York, and you kiss like you’re from Hong Kong.”

  “I kiss like a Chinese?”

  “I kiss like I’m in a Tennessee Williams play, and you kiss like you’re in a sitcom on the FOX network.”

  "Oh, I understand. I kiss like the Concord to Paris, and you kiss like a Greyhound to Atlantic City,” he said. “Here, let me try again.”

  My criticism didn’t seem to bother him too much, and we kissed for a little while longer. This time he tried to do it in slow motion, but it felt wrong, like watching an actor in a Japanese karate movie dubbed in English. I started really laughing.

  “Should we make out by sea or by land?” Isaac asked.

  “Land,” I said.

  We abandoned the uncomfortable gondola and lay down together on the Persian carpet. I spun my way out of my clothes and so did he.

  “Do you have any other helpful observations for me, or was the kissing it?”

  “The kissing was it,” I said. “Everything else is perfect.”

  “Good. How’s your throat chakra?”

  “Constricted,” I said.

  “Maybe you should try to loosen it.”

  I thought he was right, I should try, he had given up Ivy Vohl after all, and I kneeled next to him as gracefully as possible. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over the soft wool of the carpet while I began what I was sure would be the best blow job ever. But as soon as I made contact, the room went from spinning gently like a merry-go-round to reeling joltingly like a Tilt-A-Whirl, and I sort of hung on to his penis with my mouth for dear life. Then, without much warning, I was suddenly like one of those openmouthed clown heads at a fair you squirt water at. He filled my mouth and my cheeks expanded like balloons. That was when I accidentally threw up on him.

  I looked down at the Absolut-vomit in total disbelief. It had happened completely silently. His penis stuck straight up like a manatee poking its head out of a murky sea. I had never thrown up on a man before. I tried desperately to decide what to do. Leaving, which would have been my first choice, didn’t seem possible because we were in my apartment.

  Luckily, he kept his eyes closed and luxuriated on the rug, a wide, warm smile on his face. He started to sit up.

  “Don’t move,” I said, pushing him down.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m going to get you a hot washcloth.”

  “Mmmmmmm,” he said, totally content for me to serve him like the geisha I was.

  I made my way to the bathroom, praying he wouldn’t sit up, and soaked half of a huge towel in hot water. I wrung it out, ran back to where Isaac was still lying flat on his back, and gingerly swabbed all the vomit off him with the wet side of the towel and then finished him off with the dry side. The whole procedure took several minutes but he didn’t seem to notice because he was almost asleep.

  When I was done I carefully carried the towel into the kitchen, put it in a garbage bag, and still naked, hurried it out to the garbage room.

  “Where’d you go?” Isaac asked when I came back in and locked the door behind me. He was working his way to standing.

  “Nowhere, I’m right here,” I said.

  “I’m ready to return the favor.” He came over to me and hugged me.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Next time.”

  “See, why can’t you write sex scenes like this? You just gave me a nice normal blow job that we both enjoyed and nobody had to scratch anyone or spit or do anything disgusting. You should try writing from real life. You can leave the gruesome stuff to Stephen King.”

  I waited patiently for him to finish his writing lecture. “I don’t appreciate having my writing criticized.”

  “I don’t appreciate having my kissing criticized.”

  “I feel like I just gave a blow job to Robert McKee.”

  “I feel like I just got a blow job from Ebert and Roeper.”

  “I feel like I just gave a blow job to Gordon Lish.”

  “I don’t know who that is, but I feel like I just got a blow job from my mother.”

  “I feel like I just gave a blow job to Michiko Kakutani.”

  Everything was normal. He didn’t know I had thrown up on him, and no matter what happened, I would never tell him. I brushed my teeth and we got into my bed, passing a big bottle of Poland Spring back and forth between us.

  “Do you have any food?” he asked. “We really didn’t get to eat much dinner.”

  I thought of a woman I knew who made her husband elaborate spaghetti dishes in the middle of the night. And another woman I knew who regularly wore a kimono over her pajamas and carried two wooden sushi blocks to the Japanese restaurant across the street and brought them back to whatever man she happened to be with that night laden with the finest salmon skin, spider, and
dragon rolls. And there was my friend who used to make dinners for Bob Dylan after his gigs whenever he was in L.A.

  “No,” I said. “Isaac, there’s something I have to tell you. I threw up on you just now.”

  “I know.”

  I was shocked. “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew. You do know that the penis is a very sensitive part of the body, don’t you? A cock knows.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. You told me you had a block in your chakra. I should have been more sensitive about it.”

  He put his arms tightly around me and we stopped talking until he fell asleep. I said my childish prayers. God bless Arthur Weeman, and Isaac, and Dad, and Mom, and Mrs. Williams, I thought. And in a moment of sheer goodness, I even asked God to bless Ivy Vohl and help her to be a better person. I was pretty sure people in the Bible had to deal with a lot bigger obstacles than Ivy Vohl, like floods and locusts and pestilence, whatever that was. Then I remembered my sister and the thought startled me like a looming shadow. God bless Sascha. My time line was shooting up like Jack’s beanstalk. Crazy things were happening. I grabbed the bottle of Parlodel from my bedside table and swallowed one like a magic bean.

  I tried to think about Isaac, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Sascha. Finally I just got out of bed. Quietly, in my gondola, I called information. “In New York, New York for Sascha Kettle.”

  My hand shook like a teenager’s.

  “I have a Frederick Kettle, MD, and a Rebekah Kettle, but her number is non-published,” the operator said.

  “No. Sascha Kettle,” I said.

  “Oh wait, yes, I have a Sascha Kettle. I’m sorry, that’s a non-published number as well,” the operator said.

  Non-published. Those words reminded me of the novel I was supposed to be writing, and I hung up without saying thank you.

  15.

  At 33, a suitor rescues her from a five-alarm fire

  Usually when you like a man, you have to endure his parents. I’d been to knitting shops with boyfriends’ mothers, nail salons, Broadway shows, and of course the Plaza. I’d had endless lunches and Thanksgiving weekends in terrible states. But with Isaac it became painfully clear that it wasn’t his mother I had to accept. It was Ivy.

  We stood next to each other in front of the mirror in the only dressing room at La Petite Lolita, topless from the waist up.

  “You’re not a hundred percent Jewish are you?” Ivy Vohl asked.

  I wondered what about my upper body had caused her to ask me that. “Yes I am. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just really hard for me to spend ninety-eight dollars on a bra. But I love this embroidery.” She stroked the pink and green Aubade bra in her hand.

  I put on a black lace one. “I’m going to take this,” I said, hoping my decisiveness would help speed us out of there. If I didn’t consummate this with a purchase, I was afraid it wouldn’t count and I’d have to go shopping with her again.

  “Are you going to buy the matching thong?” Ivy asked.

  “No.”

  “Do they let you try on underwear here?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. There was no way I was going to stand there and try on thongs with Ivy Vohl.

  “Are you going to get anything else?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you feel lingerie helps to propagate the objectification of females?”

  “No,” I said.

  “But aren’t you buying it to wear for Isaac?”

  Ivy asked all her questions with the even intensity of an investigative reporter. It just did not feel like a conversation with a human being. I felt like I was standing half naked on 20/20 next to Barbara Walters.

  “No.”

  The salesgirl opened the door without knocking. “How are you two doing in there?”

  She was holding a basket of sachets that smelled of cloves, and an image flashed into my head of me as a young child poking a clove into the hard skin of an orange. I could feel the sharp head of the clove between my tiny fingers, see myself sitting on my father’s waiting-room floor, carefully inserting the cloves, and hear someone—Irmabelle it must have been—telling me what a good job I was doing. But there was someone else there too. Another child sitting in Irmabelle’s lap. She was younger than I was and I was helping her do it. I couldn’t see her face.

  “Is everything okay?” the salesgirl asked.

  I was gazing into the mirror and Ivy and the salesgirl were staring at me.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “I’m going to take this.” I handed the salesgirl the bra I was buying. I was buying it to wear for Isaac, although he would probably be on the phone with Ivy Vohl at the time. She took the bra and closed the door behind her.

  I got dressed quickly. “I’ll wait for you out there,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to help me decide what to get?”

  “I think you should get that,” I said, pointing to the pink and green. It really did take ten years off her breasts.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little extravagant?”

  “It’s worth it.”

  “You’re so lucky, Rebekah. You’re such a good writer. I was rereading your book the other day. But do you think you use too many adjectives? A writing teacher I had once said it’s better to leave them out.” Only Ivy could treat writing like the Atkins diet, turning adjectives into carbs. “Speaking of writing. Have you gotten around to my novel yet?”

  “I’m working on a blurb without adjectives. What about this bra?” I asked, trying to distract her.

  “I already asked, they don’t have it in my size.”

  As I watched her try on a few more bras, she changed her line of questioning.

  “Have you ever touched another woman’s breasts?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you curious to know what it would feel like? I mean, not in a sexual way, just to know what the texture would be?”

  “No,” I said, firmly.

  “I just think it’s interesting that our breasts are so different. I mean mine are bigger and sort of longer and yours are rounder like cakes.” I had always liked my breasts and now I felt like they might be ruined for me. Every time I looked at them, I’d think of hers next to them. I was glad they were safe in my sweater. I just stared at her with a mute smile on my face, unable to pretend that I liked her any more than I was already pretending. There were some people who just flattened me.

  “Do you think Isaac’s in love with you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.” I really didn’t want to discuss it with her.

  “Do you think you’re going to live together?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you think you’re going to get married? It’s just, Rebekah, don’t you think that maybe there’s something wrong with him?”

  I was taken aback, but then laughed, realizing she must be kidding.

  “Does that mean you do think there’s something wrong with him?” she asked again.

  She was serious. “No,” I said, decidedly. “I don’t.”

  “You don’t think there’s anything wrong with him,” she stated.

  “No?” I asked, wondering for the first time if there was.

  “Don’t you think he’s extremely strange?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Don’t you think the only reason you like him is because he looks like a shorter version of Arthur Weeman?”

  “He’s not much shorter than Arthur Weeman.”

  “Come on, Rebekah, Isaac Myman is a very short man. I’m only bringing this up because I’m the one who set you up, and I really like and admire you and I don’t want to have done anything that might hurt you. I mean, I really like him, don’t get me wrong, it’s just I know him a lot better than you do, and sometimes I think he’s just a little too intense, like in a weird way. Oooh, I like this one.” She strapped herself into an aqua bra with pineapples, c
herries, apples, and oranges opulently stitched onto the demicups. “It’s an Agent Provocateur,” she said, missing the irony of its name.

  Again, I thought about the cloves. I could see the light brown hands and fingers of the other child, but not her face.

  “Just be careful,” Ivy warned. Every word she said was like a clove breaking my skin. “He’s just so . . .”

  “Ivy,” I said as calmly as possible, “I really like Isaac. I’m not going to stand here and say bad things about him.”

  “I’m not saying bad things about him,” she said.

  “You just said he was extremely strange, and weird and short.”

  “No, I . . .”

  “I’ll meet you out there,” I said, and left the dressing room. I sat on a pink upholstered puff next to a basket of red velvet thongs trimmed with white fur, and tried to figure out why Ivy was poisoning me against Isaac when she’d been the one, as she liked to point out over and over again, to set us up. Then I went to the sachets and pushed clove after clove into my brain, trying to see the face of the girl in Irmabelle’s lap. The wonder I’d felt at those perfectly formed cloves! That was the essence of childhood.

  “Would you like one of these?” the salesgirl asked, dangling a sachet by its white satin loop in front of me.

  “No, thanks,” I said. I was more Jewish than Ivy thought, because while I was willing to pay ninety-eight dollars for a bra, I wasn’t going to pay twenty-six dollars for a sachet.

  “Um, is something wrong with your friend?”

  That’s when I noticed the sobbing coming from the dressing room.

  “Ivy, what’s wrong?” I tried to open the door but she was holding it shut.

  “Just leave me alone,” she sobbed.

  “Ivy.” I pushed against the door but I couldn’t open it.

  “I’m fine,” she cried. It was hard to believe that there behind the louvered door, was the menacing gossip columnist for The New York Quille, half naked, tears splashing onto the pineapples and other fruit barely covering her breasts.

  “Ivy, let me in,” I said.

  “I’m going to call the manager at our other store,” the salesgirl said.

  “Please, just go,” Ivy choked out.