Confession of an Abandoned Wife - Box Set (Books 1-3)

by Hartstein, Michal

  The holiday ended and so did our celebration.

  As a gesture of good faith, I decided to let Itay work late the first Tuesday after the long holiday to allow him to resolve issues created by his long absence from work. We agreed that if there was a Tuesday when he wouldn’t make it home on time, he would ask his mother to come over to take care of the girls so I could go and fulfill my exotic fantasy.

  In the following weeks, Itay tried to be home on time each Tuesday. At first, he succeeded, but he soon went back to his late hours. At first it made me crazy because I missed the beginning of the lesson. In time, I got used to Zehava coming every Tuesday evening to take care of the girls while I went belly dancing. Zehava Moskowitz found it very difficult to understand why a western girl from a good home got so lost in an Arabic activity, so later, I asked my neighbor's daughter to take care of the girls every Tuesday.

  By March of 2008, the Sukkot holiday was a sweet memory that had almost completely faded. By then, I already knew how to dance with Omar Faruk, Mohammad Sultan and Umm Kulthum, and Itay was coming home late almost every day, and he was also forced to travel abroad several times.

  A week before Purim, which was usually such fun with the children dressing up, Itay had to go to Germany for a week, Wednesday to Wednesday. Since the trip included a weekend, I suggested joining him, if only for the weekend. He didn't want me to come. While he didn’t have to work on Sunday, on the other days he would be busy with meetings and traveling, and, in any case, since he wasn’t staying in the center of a city, he didn't see the point of me joining him just to be stuck in a remote business hotel. The truth was, he was right.

  It had been almost six months since our luxurious and exciting Sukkot experience, but I was still reveling in its memories. Itay was supposed to come home two days before Purim. The shops were full of costumes, and I decided to revive our relationship with a steamy belly dance. I thought that role-playing would be a great way to revive our relationship, which, if not a love affair, was the next best thing. I dreamed of being a tempting harem girl.

  I bought the girls regular princess costumes and found a cute belly dancer outfit for myself: sequined bra and full, shimmery scarf with lots of jingling coins tied at the hip. I went to a fabric store and bought a piece of blue chiffon to create a matching veil. I took the fabric to a seamstress, who sewed scarf rings on a portion of it, so now I had a transparent skirt and a flimsy, yet clingy, dance accessory that belly dancers use. It covered my face and body, and I planned to use it to reveal and hide myself to the beat of the music.

  Itay was back on Wednesday, and I waited impatiently for Friday. I called Zehava, and I explained to her that Itay and I needed some rest. We went over for dinner at Moti and Zehava Moskovitz’s, and it lasted forever. The girls wore their costumes, and Moti couldn’t stop photographing them. We finally got home, alone, at almost eleven at night, but I was determined to fulfill my fantasy. I told Itay to wait in the living room, where I had the best stage. I set up the lighting to be dim, but not too dark since he was supposed to see me! I suggested he read a newspaper while I got organized. I called to him from the bedroom to press the PLAY button on the CD player, and the show began.

  I'm not claiming for a moment that I'm Shakira. I'm light years away from her, but I have an athletic background. I’d been to belly dancing classes for six months, and I’d practiced at home for weeks before the show. Besides, it’s a fact, only those who have learned to belly dance know that belly dancing is a dance that really stems from you. It’s enough to learn some basic movements, and if you connect to the music, the dance just flows out.

  Short and to the point, though I say it myself, I gave him quite a performance.

  Itay occasionally smiled, but looked embarrassed for much of the five-minute show. He was tired, but I expected him to at least feign enthusiasm. He thought I danced very well, but admitted he didn't really connect to this dance, which conjured up images of old Arabic movies. Maybe I should have picked a Latin song, like Shakira's, instead of Arabic music, but it was too late. Itay just wanted to go to sleep.

  I took off my dancing costume. My naked body did nothing for Itay. He lay down on our bed, his eyes half closed. He smiled at me and said, "Let's go to sleep cuddling.”

  I was hoping that my performance would trigger his desire for me. I got under the covers without wearing pajamas and clung to him. He didn't have an erection. To be fair, Itay never had any problem with that; he was just tired and wasn't into it. Two minutes later, I heard him breathing heavily. He’d fallen asleep. I lay next to him, still naked, silent… feeling insulted. My eyes were filled with tears and, within in a few minutes, I’d grown so tired of my self-pity that I fell asleep myself.

  The next morning, I woke up to Itay's kiss. He leaned over me and kissed me on the forehead. He always kisses me like I’m his sister, I thought to myself).

  "I arranged with Oren and some other guys to play basketball today," he informed me.

  "When?" I was shocked.

  "Before I went to Germany. I forgot all about it, but Oren texted this morning to remind me."

  I was disappointed. Now he preferred Oren over me?

  "When are you coming back?"

  "Don't know. Perhaps we’ll go get some coffee afterward."

  "So who’ll fetch the girls?" I asked.

  "I think you should go because I don't want to burden my mother too much."

  I noted to myself that he had no problem when my mother took care of the girls, but I decided not to open a new front when he was about to leave the house in half a minute anyway.

  I decided to get some more rest before I went to Itay's parents’. I finally fell asleep and woke up at ten in the morning, which is midday for most parents in the world. Because my batteries were full and I didn't need a siesta, I collected the girls and called Itay. We decided to go to Tel Aviv to visit a couple of friends who have two sons a little bigger than my daughters, but all the children were beautifully behaved. It was fun. The wife, Inbal, was a lawyer who worked with me in the office, but had moved recently to another office that could give her more flexible hours. Her husband, Yaron, was an accountant, and Itay always enjoyed sitting and driving him crazy with all sorts of questions about his pension. We sat in the restaurant for almost two and a half hours. Later we took a little walk around Tel Aviv. The atmosphere was great, and it was hard to say goodbye. I secretly told Inbal about my new dance costume, and she was eager to see it, so I invited them all to join us for supper.

  When we got to our house, the boys got a little bored, so I let them browse the Internet. Shira and Yarden were busy entertaining Inbal and Yaron, who were delighted by them both.

  At seven, I made a light supper for everyone. Itay and Yaron settled down to eat with all the kids while I pulled Inbal into the bedroom and closed the door. Inbal closed her eyes, and I quickly put on my dance outfit. When she opened her eyes and looked at me, she was shocked. At first I couldn’t understand her reaction, but then she spoke:

  "Wow, Sharon, it's just amazing."

  I smiled a satisfied smile and asked, "Really?"

  "Yes, it's amazing! Do you know how to dance?"

  "I'm far from a professional dancer, but I know a few tricks."

  "Really? You have to show me!"

  "I need music," I said. "And the tape’s in the living room."

  "I'll get it," she immediately volunteered.

  "How will you find the disk?”

  We sat and mused for about a second, and then I suddenly remembered that we have TV music channels. We found the Arabic music channel. I demonstrated some movements and also showed Inbal how to make some movements so she could understand how easy it was.

  "Wow, it’s fun... really liberating," she admitted. I smiled.

  "Well... what does Itay say? He must love it!" she said.

  I made a face. "Not particularly," I admitted.

  "Yaron would love it if I gave him such a performance."

&nb
sp; "Itay wasn’t really very interested, but he may have been tired. He’d just returned from a very intense week abroad," I replied, trying to defend him.

  "Then try again," she reassured me. "I can tell you that Yaron was reluctant at first, but now he loves these games."

  "What games?" I was curious.

  "Role play," she whispered.

  She continued. "We dress up as all sorts of characters. It just tweaks your sex life at a level you can’t imagine." I was a little embarrassed. Mostly, it was hard for me to imagine Yaron, the bespectacled, slightly balding accountant dressed as a shepherd or horny officer.

  I remained silent. Inbal then dropped a bomb. "For sure, it’s much better than a betrayal." Her words left me a little dizzy. For a moment, I thought she knew about my semi-infidelity, that maybe she knew Hanoch. Maybe she’d logged into The Marker Café and seen my profile.

  "What do you mean?" I stammered.

  She looked down and just whispered, "Sharon, it stays between us."

  I couldn't lie. "You know I tell Itay everything."

  She smiled. "Itay’s OK. I'm talking about the rest of the world, especially people who know me from the office."

  "Of course," I replied. I was eager to hear the rest of the story.

  She cleared her throat. "Almost a year ago, Yaron almost betrayed me."

  "What?" I was shocked, as if I myself hadn’t been in that exact situation just six months earlier.

  "He logged into a professional network forum and replied to someone who wanted to start a business." I couldn't help smiling. Inbal continued. "It was a young unmarried girl who wanted to start a pastry business."

  "You mean she was young, without the commitment and headache of children and, on top of everything else, she knew to make cakes?" I smiled cynically. Yaron loves cakes.

  "Yes." She wrinkled her nose and went on. "She continued to ask Yaron questions by messenger, and soon they were having very personal conversations." It sounded so familiar to me.

  "How do you know?" I was curious.

  "At one point, they started talking over the phone when Yaron agreed to be her accountant."

  "Really?" I was a little shocked since Yaron didn’t usually deal with such small businesses.

  "Yes, indeed."

  "They met?" I was curious.

  "Once or twice as far as I know, but it was really just about work because it was in his office."

  "So how did it all blow up?"

  "This slut," Inbal grumbled, "sent Yaron a text the day he left his cellphone at home."

  "Whoa." I smiled and thought to myself that it was a real beginner's mistake.

  "She wrote something like, 'You must come to taste my new pies,’ and I immediately went on alert. I looked for more messages and found some. They were not very explicit, but very diverse, personal and warm. I immediately went to Yaron's office and told him that if he wanted to avoid a scene in front of all his employees, then he should come with me to a coffee shop. I wanted explanations."

  Inbal stopped and took a deep breath.

  "Well?" I almost cracked from curiosity. "What did he say? '

  "He confessed that he’d been running an alleged business relationship with her for a month, but admitted that it was far from innocent. He told me about personal messages and conversations into the night."

  "They had sex?"

  "He says no, and I believe him."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, really. He was very upset and begged me to forgive him. He said he was bored, and that I was no longer as hot and sexy as I once was. I asked him, first of all, to end his relationship with this girl, and I sent him to sleep at his parents’ house for a few days."

  "Really?" I was shocked. "But he didn't betray you!"

  "Maybe not sexually, but he… emotionally, he betrayed me." It made me think of all the heartfelt conversations I’d had with Hanoch.

  "And what happened then?"

  "A week later, I calmed down, decided to book a luxury weekend for two and reminded him that I knew how to be hot and sexy." She smiled meaningfully. "The day before we left, I went to a sex shop."

  I looked at her in amazement and blurted out, "Inbal!!!"

  "Yes, yes," she smiled. "I went to a sex shop and looked for something to… warm the atmosphere."

  "And what did you find?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  "Not exactly nothing. There were lots of vibrators and all kinds of instruments of torture that I didn't connect to. I didn't want porn movies because I didn't know if the room would have a DVD player or not. I wanted Yaron to be concentrating on me, not some porn star."

  "So?"

  "So I thought of buying a sexy outfit. In the shop there were all kinds of accessories, but I was too disgusted to shop there."

  "I can understand that."

  "I went to a lingerie store and bought something madly sexy. Then I went into a kitchen shop and bought a small apron. I remembered to pack a feather duster too… And so I gave birth to Brigitte, the sexy maid."

  "And Yaron liked it?"

  "The first night he was a bit embarrassed and said the sexy clothes were enough. The second night he cooperated, and a few days later,, he put on his army reserves uniform and decided he was the senior officer, I was his private and that he was going to molest me!"

  I couldn’t help laughing. "You didn't burst out laughing?"

  "That's part of it," she smiled.

  Itay knocked on the door. "Girls, what’s happened to you in there? You don't want to eat? We’ve almost finished."

  "We’ll be right there," I called and started to take off my costume.

  "In short, Sharon," Inbal concluded, "you must go on trying. Role play is the best thing for your sex life."

  That evening, I told Itay that I wanted to do a second performance. I decided to put on a Latin rhythmic song rather an Arabic song. Itay refused. He was exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep.

  The following week he came home late every day. Sometimes I was asleep; sometimes I was exhausted. Not only was there no sex, I didn't even dance for him.

  By the weekend, he was exhausted. Saturday night, I took a shower and waited for him in bed, no dancing, no games. I wanted him to touch me. He lay down next to me, gave me a kiss on the forehead, how I hated that, and turned away.

  "Don't feel like having sex?" I asked in a choked voice.

  "I really feel like it," he said in a tired voice, "but I'm just dead tired."

  "Then let me wake you up," I began to stroke his back.

  "Oh, Sharon, that’s bordering on necrophilia."

  I left the body lying next to me alone, and I turned the other way, tears in my eyes. I tried to remember the last time we’d had sex and just couldn't recall. How long? Two weeks? A month? Could it be more? Two months?

  I felt so lonely and neglected.

  CHAPTER 8

  Six months after our magical Sukkot holiday, I could say that its effects had worn off almost entirely. Itay resumed his unreasonable working hours, and he stopped trying to keep his promise to return home early at least once a week. His work pressures had become absurd, and it affected everyone: the girls, home, our relationships and, of course, the lack of sex and mutual affection. Most of the time, he was not at home, and when he was with us, he was jumpy and impatient with the girls and me.

  The few times we had sex, I didn't enjoy it. I always had the feeling that we had sex just to maintain a minimum average. I buried my dance costume deep in the closet along with the idea of the role-playing games that Inbal had raised.

  I thought we would take another family vacation during spring break. I was hoping that, maybe, this was what we needed every a few months, a nice vacation to remind us all what was truly most important in life. But dreams and reality aside, Itay was called for reserve duty a month after Passover and he couldn't afford to take time off.

  We spent the first night of Passover, Leil Ha-Seder, with my parents at a hotel.
Because my brothers and I had, by then, a total of nine children - my big brother Oded had three, I had two and Tomer, my little brother, had four, though he now has five - and since Oded and Tomer didn't travel during Jewish holidays, my parents chose the more expensive, but less cumbersome, option and invited us all to a Tel Aviv hotel. Passover fell on a Saturday night, so we had three days, from Friday to Sunday, to spend with my family. At first we thought we’d travel up on Saturday night, for the holiday dinner, but my dad just begged us to come, so I gave in. It was exhausting. All those meals with all the blessings and hymns and reading the Haggadah from beginning to end… In Itay's family, they cut out reading after the meal. Madness.

  Itay actually liked these meals, probably because his family maintains virtually no connection with religion, so he sees a meal with my family as a kind of anthropological experience. I found it quite puzzling and suspicious that Itay never noticed any of the petty jibes and ‘loving’ comments I got from my mother, and worse, from Orit, my sister-in-law and daughter my mother had always dreamed of having.

  I was hoping that I would at least get to enjoy some quality time with Itay, but unfortunately my parents had booked us a family room, so, of course, we shared with the girls, and, worse, Itay brought his laptop and didn't stop working.

  I was surrounded by my family and felt so lonely.

  During the rest of the spring break, Itay went to work, and I stayed with the girls. I had no desire to take them out anywhere nice. Instead, we just went to the mall, which is our preferred hangout. When Itay was in charge, he used to organize challenging nature trips, but with me, the girls won a week of shopping, junk food and movies. I walked around the mall and, everywhere, I saw fathers chasing their children. I saw couples of all ages, and I found myself consumed with jealousy and anger.

  I felt cheated. Itay wouldn't stop talking about a third child, but I knew that the burden of another child would fall on me. When Shira and Yarden were born, Itay had helped a lot. He also stated at every opportunity that family was the most important thing for him. But, in reality, I’d been raising our daughters almost completely alone. He said he loved me, especially whenever I asked if he still did so. But the reality was that we were hardly ever alone, and he barely touched me.