A Heart Made of Branches

"And that is all I have to say, gentlemen...and lady," Max concluded. He sat down and drank his wine.

"But Rebbe—" David began

"Max, can you explain—?" chimed in Benny.

But Muriel opened the door and stood there holding a ridiculous little gong on a wooden stand which she struck with a wooden knocker. It made a surprisingly impressive sound.

"Ten o'clock," she said. "The lecture must end as agreed! Our guest has had a grueling day and has expressed a wish to retire early to the pleasures of Torah study in the guesthouse. David, Benny, Isaac, don't opportune him!"

She successfully closed the men's mouths and managed to hustle them up and out of the room before they could object, leaving Max and Elly alone. Muriel stepped back in and handed some keys to Elly.

"You'll show Max to the guesthouse? I already turned on the heat and cracked a window to air it out. We took his bags over before sundown."

"Of course, Muriel."

"Take an oil lamp. Shabbes, you know," That meant they couldn't strike any fires, which was considered work. Muriel smiled. "Then good shabbes to you both."

She withdrew. Max and Elly looked at each other and smiled. The laws of what could and couldn't be done on Sabbath—what was considered work and what wasn't—were terribly complicated and arcane. Keys could be carried in the pocket but not in the hand. A door could be unlocked with a key but not locked. A light could be turned off but—because an electric switch involved creating a spark and that was considered starting a fire—lights could not be turned on. How far one subscribed to these laws was up to one's devotion and understanding of Judaism. Max, for all his learning, was very liberal. He helped Elly on with her coat. He didn't care whether that was work or not. It wasn't as far as he was concerned. They went out the side door into the velvet dark night.

The wind was up, the snow gusting in whirlwinds by the dead bushes near the back porch. Max was wearing an Irish fisherman's sweater with a windbreaker and Elly had her NorthFace parka that swirled around her and they laughed as they leaned back into the heel of the wind and Max shielded the kerosene lamp from the draft, the flame reaching high. It was dark out here and forlorn like the wilds of creation but the guest house wasn't far, a small tack house and saddlery converted into a cozy two-story cottage painted blue and dull yellow, one of the farm's more successful renovation projects,

Elly let them in and closed and latched the door behind them (since it was a gravity latch, that was allowed. All the doors had gravity latches for just that reason). Max closed the window in the little kitchen (allowed) and lit some candles from the lantern (also allowed—no fire had been struck).

He took off his coat and Elly did the same and they faced each other in the candle-lit room as the wind howled outside. They were in the kitchen—a table, four chairs, a day bed, a stove and fridge.

"The bedrooms are upstairs," Elly said softly.

Max nodded. He took his suitcase and took her hand and Elly grabbed the lantern and he led her up the steep stairs to the second floor where there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. He stopped, uncertain which one to choose.

"Does it matter?" he asked

"This one's away from the house."

"Good."

He led her into that one and put his suitcase down on a chair. Elly put the lantern down on the nightstand and turned on the space heater in the room and the gas caught with whoosh. She stood up.

"Tell me about Yesod," she said.

Snow spattered the dark windows. The outside burned with darkness.

"Yesod. Foundation. The roots of desire, the sexual engine, that which drives us. It's the urge that can be simplified no further, like basic hunger, the bones of who we are, the reason the baby cries when it's born and what we stretch our arms out for and grasp at as we die. It's our thirst for God, our need for each other."

He put his suitcase on a chair and sprang the locks. Inside Elly saw coils of rope, whips, crops, thin metal chains, sexual implements.

"What Kabbalah is, is meaning we lay over the rawness of existence. That's what God is too. All these things happen to us, all these feelings impinge on us. We don't know what they mean. Kabbalah is how we find out what they mean. Kabbalah is the lens we see life through."

The space heater was large and the room was rapidly becoming warm. The metal of the heater ticked as it heated and expanded. Max picked up a crop and walked over to Elly and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked into her eyes, dark and filled with fire. "We are elemental," he said. "We are perfect."

He kissed her, and the kiss was worth her six month's wait, incandescently hot yet restrained as if he were leashed. He held himself back by an act of will, burying his hand in her hair and holding her head so she could get but the barest taste of his lips while he fed on hers like a tiger, bending her head back, exposing her throat. She was strong but he was stronger and he wanted her more. He had her mouth till she had to open her lips to breath, and then his mouth was at her throat, sucking her, licking, threatening to bite and devour, and his hand was on her breasts, filling themselves with her flesh, squeezing her, crushing her as if she contained a rare sweetness that he could squeeze out of her. Elly moaned. She could feel that sweetness inside of herself as well and it ached. It needed to be pressed out. Her breasts were swollen with it, her whole body was filled with this thick liquid sweetness that was starting to gather and seep from her pussy like honeydew.

"Mmmm!" Max groaned. He still had one hand in her hair and had her bent back and almost off balance, now his other hand left her breasts and went between her legs where he touched her through her skirt, pressing the fabric up against her mound, a rude, sudden assault that made her gasp. She wore no stockings, nothing on her legs, and he worked his hand beneath the skirt and touched the warm, soft skin of her thighs and followed it up till his hand was against the crotch of her panties—the warm, humid flesh behind the thin nylon.

Elly held on to his shoulders, her eyes closed, reveling in the feeling of being taken by a man, of being violated, her clothes pushed aside and the naked vulnerability of her body exploited. It was wrong of course, but it was the wrongness that gave it its erotic power, the fact that a rabbi was doing it, that she could bring him down into the simple world of carnal sin.

Max pushed her down onto the bed so she was sitting and he lifted her sweater over her head. He kissed her neck, her chest, kneeling on the bed as the snow swirled outside the window, then he went to his suitcase and got the rope.

"You wanted this, didn't you?" he asked.

She just nodded, too breathless to speak. The darkness seemed to close in around on them with a kind of formlessness, as if it were filled with potential, shadows gathering.

He lashed the rope around her wrists, binding them together, wrapping it around them five times then passing it around itself. He tied no knots. The shabbes angels that stood at everyone's shoulders would approve. He laid her down and lashed her wrists then to the headboard. The mattress was a thick featherbed and Elly sank down into it as he drew the rope tight, her elbows standing out so that she could almost touch them together. She felt exposed and vulnerable, just as she'd dreamed, a creation to be acted upon by her creator, and unfinished sculpture awaiting the chisel.

Max took a moment to lean over her and massage her breasts and kiss her and Elly felt the full power of her helplessness. She was his captive, his prisoner and neither her pride nor her refusal could save her now. The things she felt, the elements ofNetzach, had been taken down to the realm ofMalkuth, the material plane, and the rope was the sign of the feverish emotions that bound them together. She fought his kiss at first but the excitement was too much, and soon she opened her mouth to him and admitted his muscular tongue. She pulled at her bonds and opened her fingers wide but the ropes held and there was nothing she could do. She was his. His hands slid under her bra and he lifted it over her breasts, reached behind her and unhooked it so it lay there useless and defeated over the pale globes of her breasts. Her nipples spiked urgently into the air crying for attention.

He quickly opened her skirt and pulled it off, lifting her roughly off the bed to get it past her hips. Her panties followed and Elly held her breath. The room seemed very still; so quiet she could hear the snowflakes falling against the window as he peeled the garment down her hips. She had a moment of trepidation appearing naked before him like this, but Max hardly looked. He was already fumbling with more rope and lashing it to her ankles, tying her feet to the foot posts of the bed and drawing them tight, stretching her out so that she was tied like a hammock in the soft trench of the mattress.

It was so warm that she was perspiring now, the lantern and candle shining off her naked breasts and thighs as she waited for his next move. He was still fully dressed and he was sweating too, the formed meeting the formless, her nakedness waiting for his touch to give her shape and meaning. Max turned back to the case and picked up a crop.

"This too is part of it," he said. He smiled. "My magic wand"

He stroked the tip down between her breasts and over her belly, over the top of her thigh and then down, up the inside of her bound leg till it neared her sex, then brought it up to the top again, the small square of leather at the tip licking over her skin like the nib of a pen that had been dipped in flame, inscribing her with holy words of desire and arousal. She felt the evil in the whip, the potential for pain as it quivered in his hand and left her skin then slapped down lightly on her mound, on the insides of her thighs.

She tried to close her legs but couldn't. The ropes pulled tight; the bedposts creaked. Elly whimpered softly. The whip left her lower body and dragged along her belly and she looked up at Max. His eyes were bright and feverish with control, with the power of creation. He tapped the end of the crop against the fullness of her breasts, slid the leather against her stiffened nipples and circled them and Elly arched up toward the whip's caress, needing more sensation, as if sensation would hide her nakedness or would excuse her somehow.

Max stood up. "Open your mouth," he said.

Elly fixed her eyes on him and opened her mouth and Max set the shaft of the whip between them.

"Now hold it and don't let go till I tell you."

She bit down and watched as he lifted his sweater over his head then removed his undershirt. He was lean, well-muscled, covered with a sprinkling of black hair that excited her. He took the whip.

"Now let go," he said.

Elly released the whip, giving it back to him like a dog releasing a stick for her master.

What was this? They were two Jews, two civilized people on the Sabbath night. While sex was a mitzvah, what they were doing was wrong, perverse. Tying her, using a whip, that might even violate the Sabbath commandment against doing work. Didn't he care?

Didn't she? No, she didn't. She no longer believed. She believed nothing but what her body told her, that being tied like this and threatened by Max with the whip was just what she wanted. The Sephiroth of the Tree of Life spun in her head. She was Chokhmah and Binah; Chesed and Gebburah, and she was the formless void before the spark of creation, and Max was going to give it to her, going to fill her with light.

He lifted the crop and Elly strained upwards in the darkness of the room, wanting it, pushing her hips up at it, reaching for it, straining after it like a flame.

"God, you're beautiful!" he said.

He brought the whip down across her thighs.

She moaned as fire shot through her body and she collapsed into the bed, pulling at her bonds. He struck her again across the thighs and again she writhed, tossing her hips. It was his lust she felt, his desire for her; the hot, searing stroke, melting into her skin so close to her sex and yet not touching her there. He punished her and her face twisted into a rictus of pain, the look of a woman in orgasm. He hit her again, this time on the bottom of her upturned arms, and then on the bottoms of her breasts, and by now Elly was moaning, twisting on the bed, digging her ass into it, trying to force some friction against her pussy, some pressure against it. Her breasts jiggled, her mouth was open as she sucked in hot breath.

Max slid his hand up the inside of her leg to her pussy. She was wet, soaking, on fire. Elly moaned and ground herself against him, tightened her buttocks and began to pump urgently, tightening her stomach, gripping the rope over her head for leverage. Max sat down on the bed and kept one hand between her legs, pressing against her, guiding her, coaxing her, and with the other, he began to beat her pussy, bringing the crop down in sharp little strokes against her clit.

"Come on now, Elly! Come on now, my little bitch! I know what you've got for me. I know what you've got inside, whore. It's mine and I want it. It belongs to me, your master, and I want it. I'm going to beat it out of you, slut! You beautiful whore. It belongs to me and I want it! Give it to me! Give it me now! Now! Now!"

With every word he hit her with the crop and curled his fingers up into the wet swamp of her pussy till she was febrile with need, till she was dissolving in front of him like ice before a fire, falling apart and it felt like only his hand and the sharp reports of the whip against her cunt were holding her together and keeping her concentrated. The darkness of the night was closing in, deep blue and loud with silence, and the a flame was burning within it, a flame was rising up as he dug between her legs and Elly was groaning, gasping, moving her hips, whimpering, pressing against his hardness. The flame was growing, expanding and devouring her into the liquid light at the heart of it. The slap of the whip was calling her to attention, was making her see. Heat was streaming from her head and shoulders and then pleasure was crashing down upon her and she was lost, spinning off in a thousand directions with only the ropes holding her in place, only the ropes and then Max's arms and body on top of hers, seizing her and holding her, holding her together with his strength and his desire and she was crying with relief and ecstasy at the brilliance of the light and his lips were against her face and his cock was pressing against her and he needed to come into her, he needed to come in.

She wasn't ready, she wasn't ready. She needed to pull herself together. She wasn't ready! God—

He was in her! He was in. His prick just pressed through all her defenses of which there were none and he was up inside her, filling her, his weight on top of her and she was full of him, stretched with him, entire with him, the flame guttering inside her as he pushed hard, hard, making the ropes tighten around her ankles. She was spread open so lewdly, so completely, and Max had her so utterly that for a moment she felt like nothing but his container, like the Sephiroth that had contained the divine light, so she contained Max's inchoate energy and gave him form and purpose, something to strive against, and he reached beneath her, grabbed her buttocks in his hands and began to fuck her, to drive her into the softness of the featherbed with his wild yet willful thrusting, plunging into her, opening her and making her take him.

"Oh God! God, yes!" Elly cried. She pulled at the ropes but to no avail. She couldn't get free nor did she want to. She wanted to be captive, she wanted to be forced, she wanted to be opened and plundered and all her secrets discovered; all her shame and embarrassment and fear burned away in his lust and his feverish desire for her, and that's just how he fucked her, as if there could be nothing between them. He was closer to her than her own skin, deeper than her own heart. He was in her very bones.

He ground against her, his lips finding hers, his tongue thrusting into her mouth so that their nostrils flared in feverish breathing and they could both hear the soft, wicked squish of his cock stirring inside her, the liquid thrill of his flesh in hers. He pushed, pushed hard, grinding against her clit, and Elly moaned into his mouth and bit his lip, that over ripe lower lip that so needed biting. She bit him now, she had the right. He was between her legs and fucking her and she had the right to bite his mouth, tied and helpless as she was, and she did, as his big cock ground inside her.

Max snarled. He moaned and began to fuck her harder now, and faster, his hips lifting, plunging his cock into her, making the mattress bounce. He tore his lips from hers and began to gasp for breath and Elly gasped too, and her hips began to snap up at his, meeting him thrust for thrust, her pussy opening to take him inside, her legs splayed to make a saddle for his desperate ride.

"Fuck me!" she gasped. "Fuck me! Fuck me!"

But Max knew what he was doing, his ass rising and falling with trip-hammer precision, putting all the strength of his ass and thighs behind it, driving it into her so that Elly clung to the ropes as if she were in a hurricane, holding on for dear life as the maelstrom of feelings swept her up and away. She tried to lift her feet but the ropes held her, tried to close her hands around his back but the ropes held her. She hung in the ropes, helpless, being fucked by a wild man possessed by the passion of creation, hammering out his will upon her, and suddenly Max was groaning, sweating and swearing, his motions even more exaggerated, his toes grabbing for purchase in the sweaty sheets.

"God, yes! Coming, Elly! Coming!"

"Oh yes! Yes! Give it to me! Give it to me! All of it!"

He levered himself up on his hands and arched his back, threw back his head and gritted his teeth in a look of agony but his brows lifted in the fineness of pleasure, then dropped in a glower of ferocious lust and he started to growl, "Yes! Yes! Yes! God, yes!" Each word punctuated by a deep, hard thrust of his loins against her and a blinding splatter of hot fluid deep within her secret confines.

Elly felt him, felt him losing himself inside her, flexing hard and that was enough to take her up and over the edge. She bore down on his cock and felt herself go over the edge as well, a brilliant orgasm, lit with the lights of Hanukkah, the flames burning against the dark blue of the invading night, warm, enveloping, wild and joyous.

Max held her till her shuddering stopped, then untied her and held her still until even her trembling subsided, and then he turned down the heater and blew out the candle and still he held her as their breathing slowed and they looked for words but found none and touched instead, their hands caressing beneath the heavy blankets.

He got up just to turn down the lantern and then laughing jumped back into the warm, humid bed, hot from their bodies and they tangled up in each other again and watched as the snow continued to fall.

"If God has sex with the world, it must be something like this," Elly thought, then she pressed back against Max and they soon were asleep, asleep in the darkness of the Hanukkah light.

*****

In the morning they took a walk. Elly was frank and asked him, "How can you stuffy Kabbalah if you don't believe in God?"

"Did I say I didn't believe in God?"

"Didn't you?"

"I don't know," he said. "'Does God exist' you mean? Like that?"

"Yes." They walked on in silence.

"Well?" she asked. "Does he or doesn't he? It's a simple question. It's what I asked them at rabbinical school and no one would give me a straight answer. I don't see why not. You're talking about God, does he really exist or not? What's so hard to say?"