"I wanna hookup again."
"Well, I wanted a vacation on a private beach in Crete."
"Maybe in a restaurant, with your wimp ass hubbie, what's his name, Ron? We can go shakalakaboom under the table, again."
"I don't have an open relationship, anymore. It's over."
"Dan, that's it. Dan the clown. That's his name."
"I know the oxygen on your way to your brain stops for a drink, but you'll get there. I'm positive."
"Too bad."
"See, I knew it would sink in."
"We can still go one on one." He winked.
Ana punched the intercom on her desk. "Lin, could you come here for a sec? That would be all, Nadav. I don't need to stress just how important it is that you complete the homework I've given you. We're one step from closing the deal with Hapoel solicitors' team, and you don't want them to pull any rabbits during money time."
Nadav picked up his long form out of Ana's chair. On the way out he signaled Ana to call him and then gave a tongue in cheek blowjob mimic.
If I shoot him, would that be considered a mercy killing? She felt she was entitled to a little respite for having to endure fifty minutes of Nadav, so she clicked on her favorite show. Lin Young feat -- threesome. One body builder sort of guy was doing the little lawyer, doggy style, while she had her lips wrapped around another man's cock. Her husband was filming again.
It was some sort of a swingers club. Ana already recognized several faces from other movies that were taken on various dates on various locations. It was hot. For the first time ever, Ana masturbated in her office, touching herself behind her desk. She wondered if she could convince Dan to try swinging together. It was better than going behind his back. Most of the movies showed Lin having sex, but one showed Michael buggering a tiny blond. The thought of Dan going at it with that blond hottie infuriated her, and she realized her current situation was the best for them both.
Lin peeped into the office; a raccoon smile on her face, a gloating kind of smile. Why the hell would the little bitch be gloating?
"Just met Nadav outside. That man, wow! How can you stand him? He's like a walking ego attached to a person," Lin said.
"He can afford it, and with what we charge him, he's entitled to."
"I guess so. But working with him; God, a nightmare." Lin was still wearing her annoying smile. "At least he's nice to look at."
"Eh. Not my cup of tea."
"Really? I would die to go one on one with him. He's packing."
What the...? "Lin?"
"What? I like big, it's just so ... big. " Lin winked.
"Really?"
"You can't argue with big."
Ana laughed.
"Just a wicked thought," Lin winked again. "I'm glad you called."
"Is there a problem with your eye?"
"It's called subtext."
"I'm really bad with subtexts. Why don't you just lay it out?"
"Hmmm... I'd rather we don't do it here; how about lunch?"
"Ahhh, lunch, such a nice concept. Sadly, I need to skip lunch today, tomorrow, and next week. Because someone had Nadav Fine's lawsuit on her desk for three weeks, and apparently what she accomplished..." Ana made a show out of ruffling the pages in front of her. "Meeting with Hapoel legal team... had been canceled. Interview with former coach, Yaron Levin... hmmm. No, that one had been cancelled twice. Getting the Toothgate Total commercial contract ... nope. Freezing assets warrant ...ah, no. Dubbing Ziv Schwartz' incriminating recording from Russian to Hebrew.... "
"I didn't do it."
"Really? Getting in touch with Nadav's trust fund representative... No. You're getting the pattern here? Let's make it simple, what did you actually accomplish?"
"Well-"
"That was a rhetorical question, dear. "
Lin picked up a framed photo from Ana's desk. It showed Dan and Tom, from a few years back, just after a rafting track on the Jordan River, both laughing at some joke, eyes bright with the adventure they just shared. Ana loved that picture.
"Two good looking men," Lin said.
"Thanks." Are you seriously hoping to weasel your way through your incompetence by flattery?
Lin licked her upper lip. A quick cobra like movement, in and out. "Dan is hot."
Take your whorish eyes off my husband's body.
"He looks a lot like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. 'Yippie-Kai-Yay, Motherfucker' style. Did I tell you we went to the same high-school? "
"Several times. I asked him about it, he doesn't remember you." Actually Dan did, but she couldn't skip an opportunity to step on Lin's toes.
"Top student, top athlete. He was really cute, not a jerk, a bit shy. Half the eleventh graders had a crush on him."
"You too?"
"No. I had a boyfriend."
Sure. In your face, bitch, he's mine.
"Did you like my movies, Ana?"
"What?" Ana started coughing.
"You liked them."
It took her some time to rearrange her breath. "What movies?"
"If you were half as smart as you think yourself to be, you'd be twice as smart as you really are."
Ana tried to do the math in her head and then realized she better focus on denial. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"I've installed a spy application on all my computers, just in case my husband thinks he can try and have some extra-fun outside the boundaries of our parties. I know you copied the movies, so don't bother with the charade. Did you like what you saw?"
Ana stared at her.
"Come on, you seriously think I would have forgotten something like that by mistake on a folder that says 'Private Stuff'? Why did you think I insisted that you come over and copy the files yourself?"
"Why would you, really?"
"Because I know how you think, sweetie. You may fool the other dimwits, but I read you, sister. So you liked it?"
"Liked?"
"We're a very small, tight, group; high class kind of people. We don't allow any Tom, Dick and Harry in."
What the hell?
"Eight couples; all of them upper class, all of them good looking."
Ana didn't have to pretend she was shocked. She thought she had all the cards, but apparently Lin was playing another game. "You're shitting me not."
"I'm always on the lookout for new people, though; quality people; like you and Dan."
"I'm flattered," Ana tried to smile, it came out crooked.
"Keeping it fresh, you know."
"Amazing. And how do you...? What-? How-? What exactly do you do in those parties? Other than- Just curious. Do you have a theme, like doggy style or threesomes?"
"So we're pretending now."
"Pretending you don't have a screw loose."
"Come on, Ana, I know you and Dan are swingers."
"What?"
"I gotta hand it to you, I would never have suspected. Open marriage, you?"
"Who told you that bullshit?"
"You think I would have let you in if I didn't know you and Dan were into it?"
"You know what? I don't even want to know who is spreading filthy lies about me." Ana snatched the photo from Lin's hands. "And you better wipe that stupid grin. If I were wearing your shoes and one of the partners would have told me my performance was less than -"
"A minor partner."
Bitch. "If one of the partners was on to the fact that I neglected one of our top clients, I wouldn't be smiling."
"Whatever."
"Whatever? Whatever disgusting things you and your husband do in your own free time is none of my business, Lin. I don't know what you have heard or you think you've heard about me; and frankly I couldn't care less. Amiram is so going to hear about how you handled Nadav's lawsuit. Now if I were you, I would be more worried about my annual evaluation than about recruiting people for my perverted hobbies. "
"Not as worried as the lawyer who had sex with a client. One of our top clients. I bet Amiram and the Bar Association would be thrilled to know."
A five ton hammer of condensed fear hit Ana's heart, hard.
"So Nadav is not your cup of tea, eh? Perverted hobbies my ass. Your ass, actually, from what I've heard." Lin rose and flashed a huge smile.
Ana stared at the door a long time after Lin was gone. She tried dialing Nadav Fine's number, to warn him against saying anything to anyone. Her hands shook so hard that she kept punching the wrong numbers. When she finally did it right, it suddenly hit her that the only way Lin could have known about her, Nadav, and her open marriage, was because the mush-for-brains big-mouth had bragged about it himself.
"Fuck!!!" Her scream echoed through the entire office.
@@@@@@@@@
Ron White (the standup comedian) says that if life gives you lemons you should find the guy whom life gave vodka. What do you do if life gives you lemons then craps big time on your head?
Alice White thought you still need to find the guy whom life gave vodka, hose down the pain with the bottle, and then fuck his brains out until you're numb. It used to do the trick for her, but then she fell in love for the first time, at the age of 37.
"Damn good ice-cream." Her tongue trailed around the small mountain of chocolate chips and vanilla. Alice tried to remember when was the last time she felt so happy and couldn't. It was an illusion, a sweet one, but it wasn't real. On the restaurant's sound system someone played Regina Spektor's 'Better', and she felt she could relate.
"If I kiss you where it's sore, Will you feel better, better, better, Will you feel anything at all?"
Dan was on the phone again, it seemed like the phone was an extension of his ear, these days. The ice-cream ball touched his cheek and he smeared it in an absentminded cleaning attempt. She killed a frightening urge to lick the trail it left. Instead, she wiped his cheek with a napkin, took the cone of pistachio out of his hand, and gave it a healthy bite on its left side.
"Hey!" He stared at the half green ball she left him, so she took it from his hands, and gave another bite on the right.
"Hey, twice!"
"Sorry, I'm a sucker for symmetry."
"I've never seen you say no to food," he said. "How come you always look like you're on a diet of foam and carton?"
"Moroccan genetics to die for, mixed with self-hatred. So I was Samantha Jones, and Alice Walk-Of-Shame, eh?"
"I'm not too proud of it, right now, so I'd appreciate if you let it slide."
She had another frightening urge to taste his lips, to drown. Stop it, you idiot!
"You need a new physiotherapist, Alice."
"You need to tell Ana you're not invited to Roni and Rose's barbeque. She was looking forward to it."
"She'll live."
"Maybe insulting people is something you should leave to professionals." She pointed her thumb at herself.
"What are you on about? I've seen Rose's bubble burst plus I don't get to go to the petite bourgeoisie convention of the year. I feel so lucky I should buy a lottery form right now. Did she and Moshe ...? In my garage? Are you sure?"
"Maybe she needed an oil check. Grow up, boy scout."
"Jesus, the world is full of disgusting little secrets. Everyone is cheating with someone," he said.
"You're not."
"I'm an idiot, remember?"
"No you're not; you're the smartest person I know."
Dan gave his ice-cream a halfhearted lick then offered it to her. He picked up his mobile that was buzzing again. "Hoi? You're kidding? Sure, sure, no problem, I'll be there, thanks. Yaron, you're the king, Lio Messi, Michael Jordan, and Elvis combined. Thanks, I owe you a big one."
"What was that?" She couldn't help but smile at the happiness she saw on his face.
"That was my officer from the Fire Brigade. I just got a free pass from two and a half weeks of dust eating. I-" He looked a little embarrassed. "I kind of manipulated him into believing that the shelter schedule depended on it."
"Such a conniving rascal; you could give lessons to Frank Underwood."
"I already fixed everything at work for two and a half weeks of absence. So I'm gonna take a week off."
"Wicked."
"I'll buy two tickets to Italy and me and Ana are going to have a week in Florence. A second honeymoon. I have it all mapped right here." He tapped his forehead.
"Oh." Suddenly the ice-cream didn't taste that good.
"This is so great. Ana has been dying to go on a vacation for ... yeah."
Alice thought about Ana's vacation, two months ago, to Crete. She already took, by force, what she was dying for; treating her husband like a common doormat. Dan was probably thinking about the same thing because a shadow of pain crossed his handsome face.
"It's going to be amazing. We're going to celebrate our anniversary at Alfredo's restaurant on the Arno, just like we did fifteen years ago."
"Nice."
"Don't tell Ana anything. Yaron wants me to enlist for two days to help prepare the tools before they'll drive south. So I'll pretend that this is it; that I'm going for to the full APC course. I'll arrange everything with her office."
"You want to surprise her?"
"I know what you think," he said.
"You do?" Alice panicked.
"That I'm sticking my head in the sand, nope... nope, nope, up my ass. I'm pretending that nothing happened. Believe me; nothing could be further from the truth. Every time I look at Ana I can't help thinking about everything she did with those jerks."
"It sounds like you're fishing for my approval. It's your life, Dan."
"Not approval; understanding. My marriage is one tiny step from being history. And you were right."
"Me?"
"I am a wuss. I never fight where and when it counts."
If I kiss you where it's sore, will you feel better? Will you feel anything at all?
"I don't want to be that man anymore. It's like I'm trying to get out of a very dark place and maybe a trip to Italy will remind me - us of what we once had."
"Yeah."
"So you understand?"
"What's not to understand, you still love her."
"I can't forgive her, as much as I try, but on the other hand -- Without her... Without Ana I can just close the curtain on the whole... I can't imagine my life without her, there's just no point."
Alice felt her heart squeeze, tried to push it away, and gave up. It was bitter sweet and new. Painful, but also refreshing because it made her feel alive, and it didn't even require sex to amplify nor alcohol, or drugs to nullify.
"I always thought that you can't love someone like that," she said. I don't anymore.
Dan gave a weak smile.
"Go to Italy, I'll stay with the kids."
"Really? Because my dad can-"
"What you're going through is my fault -- well, a lot is; and I know you forgave me, because you're such a fucking Care-Bear, but let me at least -- you know, I owe you a few plus. I'll stay with the kids, we'll have fun."
"It's really okay; I already talked with my dad."
"You don't trust me with Liana and Tom? Seriously?"
"Of course I do, you just have a lot to deal with right now."
"Okay, Dan," she signaled for a timeout, "you gotta stop treating me like I'm made of glass; it's not fun being with you anymore. So you know a dark secret about me, so fucking what?"
"You don't have a dark secret; Ofek does. Nothing you did was dark or wrong. You were twelve; a little bigger than Tom."
"Yeah, it's..." A look of surprise touched her face. "Maybe you're right, I never thought of that. Still it's not something - never mind. Thanks."
"What Rose said about you, what other people say about you, it's mostly bullshit."
"Stop! I am what I am. I deserve most of the crap I get, and I can handle it. So stop. I'm still a hundred times tougher than you'll ever be, Dan."
"I used to think you are; I don't anymore."
"Well, you're an idiot."
"I know, I know."
She threw her arms in the air. "It's not even fun trying to tease you, anymore. What good are you without those joyous moments when you bring up the insulted-puppy-frown, huh?"
"Your grandma was right, you're locked in a pattern and it's not going to disappear on its own. It's getting worse. Seriously, I'm worried about you, Alice."
"Then stop."
"Can't help it."
"Look, sweetie, I..." She gave a sad smile, "it's nice that you care but it is what it is; nothing anyone can do about it."
"Maybe it doesn't have to be so," he said.
"All we need is to take that gun you have in your safe, borrow H.G. Wells' time machine, set it 26 years back when I was twelve, park the time machine near Ofek's office, aim at his balls, and shazam; we're good."
"Get real. Where would we find parking in Tel-Aviv in the middle of the day? I've got a better plan." He took a deep breath, "My plan... Okay, but first you got to promise you won't try to kill me."
"Like hell! What did you do?"
"I dated this girl, Aviva Ben-Tovim, in high school."
"Huh?"
"I met her in a school reunion two years ago, and we became Facebook friends."
"I know it's not an affair story, because it involves you, so I'm wondering when the boring climax comes."
"She's - She's a psychologist."
"Hell, no!" Alice raised her voice.
"High caliber therapist. A doctor, a psychiatrist. But she's also a psychologist, and she specializes in women who went through-"
"So fucking no!"
"Come on, it's the 21st century; everyone has a psychotherapist; don't be a cavewoman."
"I don't believe in psychologists."
"They're a myth?"
"Don't make me regret that I told you."
"But you did and I'm involved now."
"I was shitfaced. No chance in hell I'm gonna talk about it with some head-shrinker. I want to put it behind me. It is what it is, Dan."
"You know, when they kicked me out of my job it was humiliating. I was the man everyone depended on, and just like that, in a single day, I became useless, a liability, the man who can't take care of his family. But that wasn't the worst part."
"You're seriously comparing yourself to me?"
"No, but the worst part was that I felt totally alone. Ana never bothered to find out what I was going through. In retrospective it was idiotic to go into despair. I could have found a job as a programmer in a flash; I was afraid to let down everyone, and it sort of fed itself. Sometimes you can't find the solution yourself; you need someone on the outside. Irit, a total stranger, gave me compassion and perspective."
"Irit?"
"What I'm saying is that you've been alone in this for twenty years."
"It's my burden."
"But you're not alone anymore. I can't pretend that Ilan's wedding never happened."
"And I can't afford a therapist." She pretended to clean ice-cream drops from her high boots, to avoid looking at him when she talked. She really wanted to kiss him right now, or slap him; probably both.
"I already paid for the first session."
"Fucking awesome! So you're Ana now? Running people's lives for them?"
"Give it a shot, Alice, for me. You owe me a few plus, remember?"
"Will you go in with me?"
"I would if Aviva says it's okay, but I think it's a private journey."
@@@@@@@
Lin Young believed life gave her lemons, because they gave all the good stuff to the tall bitch down the hall. Ana was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, had breathtaking beauty, married Dan, whom Lin thought was the hottest man on planet earth (bar Bruce Willis himself), lived in a huge house, and was nominated to partnership over Lin.
Not surprising that the current situation almost felt like a sweet lasting orgasm. She pretended to be immersed in the document she was writing; every time Ana opened her mouth she signaled for her to wait just one more second. In fact, she was punching random letters on the keyboard, savoring the moment. Let the tall bitch wiggle just a bit more.
"We need to talk, Lin. Stop pretending you're typing."
"Now you want to talk?"
"Come on, Lin. What did you expect?"
"Nothing much."
"I -- It's so embarrassing. I thought I would die of shame if anyone in the office knew."
"Nobody does. Ana, just me."
"Nadav told you?"
"It's under client attorney confidentiality." Lin's smile was anything but kind.
"It's bullshit."
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