Wicked Ch. 08

"Really? I don't remember what the law says about sexual misconduct, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't dismiss it as bullshit."

"No, the fact that you know. You just caught me unprepared. I'm sorry that I jumped you."

"Like a Rottweiler."

Ana faked an apologizing smile. "It was an embarrassing moment for me."

"Why? You already saw what I do on my free time."

"But -- This is really embarrassing. My husband, he's..."

"What?"

"Dan thinks that you're -"

"What?"

She had to sacrifice a few pawns to win this. "We played this little fun game, when we opened our marriage. We called it: 'Whom would you do?'"

"So?"

"Your name, sort of, came out on his, would do list, Lin."

"My name?" Lin's tone rose two notches "What? Sort of...? Sort of came?"

"Sort of really."

"My name?" She almost panted like a puppy and Ana gave herself a mental pat. "Am I at the top of the list or like-"

"It's a short list, Lin, don't push it. What would you do if your husband told you he fancied someone and then that someone tells you he thinks your husband is hot, then a moment later invites you and your husband to... you know. I freaked out."

"Okay."

"I'm new to this whole... I know it's ridiculous."

"It's okay to feel insecure. I know if Michael would have said he fancies you..."

Yeah, as if I would ever touch a midget like your runt husband. In his dreams, maybe.

"Maybe you should talk about it with Dan?"

"I already did."

"Oh."

"He said, why not."

"He did? Did you tell him everything?"

"I didn't mention you thought he was hot, no."

Lin laughed.

"So I'm a little jealous, so what? I say we go for it."

"Great. The next party is in two months."

"How about next week?"

"I like the enthusiasm, but these things require planning. We need to hire a place --"

"How about mine?"

"Your house?"

"It's huge. It's got a big pool. Lots of rooms. Just one neighbor and she flew to the USA last week. My kids will be with their grandparents. It's a onetime opportunity."

"Are you serious?" There was a struggle on Lin's face. Ana knew that her natural suspicion battled with her lust for Dan. "I'm not sure I can arrange for everyone to arrive on such a short notice."

"Even better. More discreet."

"Hmmm... I don't know, Ana."

Throw her a hook. "Well, only one condition, you don't get to touch Dan."

"Come on. Be a sport."

And the nasty runt fell for it. "No. That's a final no. Non-negotiable."

"I'll let you have a go with Michael."

Yuck. "No, Lin."

"Cut me some slack here. This whole thing is about sharing, not hoarding close to your chest. Be generous with me and I'll be generous and forget some silly issue about misconduct."

Fucking bitch. "You know what? Maybe."

"Great."

"But only on my terms," Ana said.

"What terms?"

"I'll have to think about it, and I said maybe."

Lin smiled like someone who just won a big game and he's trying hard to tone it down because the loser is standing right there in front of him. "Then I guess I have some phone calls to make."

When Ana went out of Lin's office, her head was buzzing. Only when she was back at her desk she allowed herself to breathe out in relief. She had set the chessboard, now she needs to align the tools. She picked up the phone.

"Nadav, it's me. Yeah, I know you did, sweetie, that's great. I'm calling about the other thing. I gave it a second thought. I do want to hookup again. Great, Nadav, that's fine, Mr. Fine. But I need a favor from you first. I think you'll like it. How about going to a party with me?"

@@@@@@@

"You're very good at this, Aviva," Alice said. She had her back to the psychologist, and was looking out of the window at the playground below. Dan was waiting for her down there with Liana. He was convinced that recreational facilities were death traps in disguise, so he followed his daughter, hand in hand, up and down on every slide and jungle gym. Right now he was trying to squeeze through the transparent slide tunnel, which was sadly designed for five year olds and not for a 38 male with the physique of a heavyweight boxing champion. Not only did he lag behind his daughter, he was also creating a traffic jam of annoyed kids. This stressed him greatly; he tried to pick up the pace, and bumped his head, hard, against the low ceiling. Alice laughed. God, what a dork. How could I have hurt him so badly? Ana would have never started this madness if it wasn't for me. I don't need a therapist I need a 38 caliber to the brain.

She always imagined psychologist offices with a soft couch that smothers you with its comfort. Aviva's office had chairs, and only one of them looked comfortable. Sadly, Aviva occupied it. What a bitch. "You're really good at this," she said. "I feel ... relieved. We made a great progress today."

"I can't force you to talk, Alice."

"So I'll just keep standing like that for --"

"Thirty three more minutes."

"And still you'll take the money."

"That's how it works."

"I missed my call in life."

"Go on."

"That wasn't a confession; that was a rhetorical trick called cynicism. I don't know what I'm doing here."

Aviva Ben-Tovim looked like a farmer that spent most of her days under the sun, operating combine harvester, not like someone who worked in an air-conditioned office. Alice tried to imagine how she looked when she was seventeen, and dating Dan. It made her jealous.

"I've picked up from the internet an interview you've given to Yediot," Aviva said.

"When was that?" Alice asked.

"It's from ten years back; when you married Amir Paz."

"Oh, that one. Sweetie, you're the only one who actually read it. Everyone else opened it just for the boobs and ass photos."

"I've read it."

"A piece of nonsense; ninety percent bullshit and ten percent utter crap."

"Okay."

"All the so called, juicy gossip items," Alice snorted, "I invented them, on the spot. Like cooking dinner and waiting for Amir, wearing only an apron. Yeah, that really happened."

"Go on."

"What about? The whole marriage was a joke. His agent had thought it might give a push to his dying acting career. My agent had thought it was a great idea. We were the tabloids' favorite couple for two months, and that's it. Everything I said on that interview... Doing it like rabbits, well, we were; only he was doing it with his boyfriend."

Aviva raised both eyebrows.

"It's under patient confidentiality, right?"

"Of course."

"Does it surprise you? You're too old to be one of the fourteen year old screaming fans that wanted to bear his children."

"Probably."

"He's gay, not even Bi. I don't even know if he's any good is in the sack."

"Do you feel that marrying Amir might have been pushed on you by your agent?"

"Hell, no." Alice gave a short bitter laugh. "And compared to my other two marriages, Amir and I were a success story. He never tried to hurt me or anything."

"Go on."

"That's about it."

"You said your other husbands hurt you."

"I said, tried to."

"And?"

"And! Go on! Okay! You don't contribute much to the conversation, do you? 'Cause I have given quite the monologue. There's nothing wrong with me, you know. I ain't crazy."

"Believe me, you don't have to be crazy to talk to a counselor. I'm not here to make you feel awkward or uncomfortable in any way. I'm here to help you live your life to its fullness."

"Awwww, so sweet. Do they make you memorize that bullshit speech on counseling 101?"

Most people would flinch when she lashed out like that, some would attack right back. Aviva did neither. She looked at Alice with her brown eyes, two deep wells, that could contain the world's sorrow and still it wouldn't be too much. Alice knew immediately why Dan loved her once, and hated her for it.

"There was a part that--," Aviva paused. "Well, it must have caught the interviewer's eye too; because the headline he had chosen for the interview was, 'The Acrobat'."

Alice turned her back to Aviva, a little too fast. Dan was spinning Liana on the merry-go-round at a speed that could bore a tortoise. She ached to sit with them. If only I had a father like him. Something rose from the deep place where she kept the sad remains of the little girl she once was, her frightening secrets, her dead, unborn child, little pieces of what might have been. Lately it was getting crowded in there, her rope felt so thin it was almost not there.

"You said in the interview - if I can remember the exact words - that you feel a lot like an acrobat. An acrobat on a high rope."

She felt her rope shaking.

"One wrong step and you'll fall into a dark pit."

"Yeah, like I said, the interview was just a pile of bull."

"Okay, and you don't think that feeling always one step from disaster is a-"

"There's nothing wrong with me."

"So maybe-"

"There's nothing wrong with me."

"I didn't say-"

"There's nothing wrong with me."

Something rose and then popped.

"Well, maybe there's this one thing, that my dad raped me since I was twelve." She turned to Aviva. "If you'll say, go on, I'll shove this ashtray down your throat. No? Good! And ... and my little brother tried to rape me too, once he could find his dick. And he got me pregnant, my dad that is, not my brother, and I had an abortion, and now the only way I can have kids is if I order them by mail, you know. Funny stuff."

Her heart was dripping through her eyes and the words felt like they came from someone else's mouth.

Aviva offered her a tissue but she didn't take it.

"So I ran away and tried crack, and sometimes vodka, and sometimes crack and vodka. That didn't turn out so well. So I tried fucking assholes, plenty around. It helped. It felt like victory each time I enjoyed sex despite everything he had done to me. And I was really hurting my dad fucking all them assholes; so a win, win. Yep... I bet he hurt a lot over it, being such a delicate soul that he is. But other than that there is nothing wrong with me. How about you?"

Aviva didn't smile and Alice thought it was a shame because smiles sometimes made reality less intolerable.

"I- ... Other than that there is nothing wrong with me. No, that's a big fucking lie. There is something really, really wrong with me."

@@@@@@@

Saturday

Dan started the last set of pull ups on the patio's pergola crossbeams; three times ten set. The weather report girl promised 80 percent humidity, but it felt like the humidity had a little air percentage in it. His back was a river of salty sweat. A few hours ago he had a three rounds match against the Golden Gloves Club's current hotshot, Vladimir, and he dominated every glorious second of it. Pulling his body up, he squeezed a masochistic pleasure, from his muscles' loud protests. He jumped down and felt charged enough to run a marathon.

Dan stood for a moment under the searing Israeli sun, eyes closed, and didn't care that it burned his face. He took a lungful of air, full of ripe peaches and mowed grass, and it tingled from his nose down to the soles of his bare feet. Yesterday's sorrows evaporated, forgotten under a moment of bliss.

"Every day in every way I'm getting better and better."

He taught Tom to swim proper freestyle, worked two hours in the garden, and still he had energy to spare. So he hung himself upside down on the beams and started a sit-up set when Ana came out of the house, wearing a gold chemise, carrying ice coffee with ice-cream.

"Wow." He huffed.

Ana spun, like a ballerina, on her toes. "Wow the coffee or this new sexy thing I bought?"

"Both."

She grabbed his cock through his shorts.

"Christ, what are you doing?"

"Just checking the goods, hot stuff." She pulled his pants up.

"Tom might go out any moment for a swim."

"He's running Beyblade episodes on the VOD, so bar Atomic war, power failure, or pizza, he'll be a zombie for the next hour." She stood on her toes and gave the head of his cock a lick. Despite being upside-down, Dan felt the blood rushing to his loins.

"Okay, wait." He grabbed the beam and lowered himself down. Let me take a shower, I'm sweating like a hog."

Ana pushed his broad chest and took a lungful whiff. "Smells like hard work." She pressed an invisible button in the air. "Like."

"Wait." He pulled his pants up.

She slapped his hands away, lowered herself on the white tiles and pulled his pants down. Her lips closed on his erect cock.

"Ana, oh God."

"Goddess, not God." She gave him a nasty bite.

"Ouch, wait."

"No." She gobbled his tool, tasted sweat as it filled her mouth, and cradled it against her tongue.

"Oh."

She pulled back. "That's it? Oh?" She punched his stomach. "On your back, I need some hard exercise myself."

Dan laid his back on their lawn and felt the grass tickling. Above him on the pecan tree, the pair of nesting parakeets were laughing at some parakeet joke.

Ana mounted him and lowered herself on his cock. She wasn't wearing panties. They both moaned at the same time. "Finally! A six-pack." She pinched his abs.

Dan did a sit-up, just to show off, and she pushed his broad chest down.

She compared him to Sean; and came up with a tie. Her husband with abs and muscles, that started bulging again, was really hot. She wanted them both.

Dan pushed up, totally off rhythm. As far as the art of lovemaking goes, he should take lessons from Sean.

She started pushing herself up and down on his cock, singing a nursery rhyme by the national poet. "Swing, swing, up and down, down and up. Who is up? Who is down? Just you and me, me and you ouhhhh, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah."

"I don't remember that line from my kindergarten."

"It's the R rated ver - , ah, ah, ah, ah, shit, God, too soon."

"Did you just...?"

"Yep." Ana glowed.

"Crazy."

"That's what having a sexy husband does for ya." She sunk her nails in his chest.

"Christ, Ana."

"Don't you dare Christ me; I just had a phone call from Rose Shultz."

"Yeah," he grabbed her ass and pulled her deeper. Ana moaned. "I forgot to tell you; It slipped my mind. Honest."

"Selective memory much?"

"Officially," Dan thrust upwards; Ana rose with a squeal. "Officially the Shultz couple was voted off our friends list."

"Says who?"

"It was a secret ballot; I can only reveal that it was a unanimous vote."

"You insulted our friends because of Alice?"

"I insulted Rose because she's a self-righteous hypocrite bitch." Dan thrust again, harder. He got a happy umph sound from Ana for his effort.

"You know, we're having better sex than we had in ages," she said.

"My aim is to please, milady."

"Appreciated. Is there something going on behind my back between you and my little sister?"

"What?" Dan pushed Ana off him; she fell and her naked ass slapped the grass.

"Hey."

"Are you nuts? Rose told you?"

"Maybe."

"What a snake in the grass. And you believed her?"

"Why are you blushing, Dan?"

"Are you for real?" He sat up.

"Did you take Alice out for lunch or didn't you?"

"I totally did."

"What? Why?"

"I needed to talk to her."

"What about?"

"Making love schedule."

She slapped his chest, hard. "Not even as a joke."

"I convinced her she needed to see a psychotherapist."

"Why?"

"Are you serious? It's Alice we're talking about."

"So?"

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has fewer issues than your sister. She's post traumatic, Ana."

"What?"

"The psychologist said that."

"She's post something, that's for sure."

Dan stared at her in a shock. "I just told you your sister is suffering from severe trauma. The stunt she pulled on road number one; she wasn't just trying to hurt that asshole, she was trying to hurt herself."

"Nonsense. She's been the center of attention all her life. She's just coming to term with the fact that she's no longer an Israeli icon. That no one cares about a 36 ex-supermodel. So she's throwing tantrums like Liana."

"I can't believe that you belittle -. You know, she loves you so much, Ana. You're the only person in this world she really cares about."

"Alice cares about Alice, and very little else."

"I don't believe what I'm hearing."

"I love her, Dan." Ana tried to sit back on his cock but he pulled back. "I do. Other than me, she has no one. But you got to admit that she's selfish, and childish, and manipulative as hell."

"No! What...? Manipulative? You know what? That's bullshit -- you can say a lot about Alice, but at least, with her, what you see is what you get."

It was Ana's turn to blush. "What do you mean, at least with her? As opposed to whom?"

His mouth clenched.

"You're talking about me."

Dan rose to his feet, Ana followed.

"Oh my God, she's doing it, again."

"Doing what again?" He said.

"Turning us against each other. Can't you see?"

"I can see a lot of things that I didn't see before, or maybe I saw them, but it was easier to pretend that I didn't."

"Who do you think talked me into doing all that crazy...? I'm too ashamed to even say it out loud. It was her, Dan, Christ, you're so naïve. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have dreamt about this stupid open marriage idea."

"Alice?"

"Can't you see what's going on, baby? She's using you just as she used me."

"Using me? Using you?"

"That's exactly what it is."

"Alice is a puppet master." Dan's body started shaking and he clenched his fist to make it stop.

"Yes, no, well she's not that smart but-"

He took a deep breath. "Ana, please, stop." He said in a low voice.

"You don't know her like I do."

Dan felt a sudden calm wash over his face; the parrots stopped their bickering and the air was still with anticipation.

"I should have seen this coming from a mile off," she said. "First she manipulated me. Now that she'd failed, she tries another angle."

"Who do you think you're talking to, Ana?"

"What?"

"I'm Dan, remember? Your husband for the last thirteen years plus two kids."

She tried to touch his cheek but he stepped back and her hand dropped.

"I've seen you manipulating people so many times; lying to people. I always hated it, but looked the other way because I was- because it's easier to belittle the failings of the one you love so much. I guess I deserve what I'm getting now."

"Getting what?"

"The same treatment. Did Alice force you to have sex with Nadav Fine? To dump me and your kids on a whim and go on a week vacation with some asshole you barely knew? I was with Alice at the hospital when you sent me that picture. Did she manipulate you into sending that filth to me?"

"Nadav did it. I didn't know he was going to. I swear."

"Stop lying. Please. God, I beg you. Stop."

"Dan."

"When did 'us' stop being sacred, or maybe it never was?"

It was Ana's turn to start trembling. She had never seen him so calm during a conflict; it made her stomach twist.

"Alice is not the only one who is going to seek professional help, Ana. I've scheduled us for marriage-counseling. We're going, once I get back from reserve duty."

"But-"

"But what? You thought everything is cool over here?" He pointed at himself and back at her. "We're a happy couple? Family?"

"It's a process, Dan."

"Every time we sleep together I can't stop thinking about those assholes, and I can't stop wondering. Is she really here with me or is she with someone else?"

"You! Always you." She almost wailed.

"I can't even trust that, anymore. I so want to, Ana. I so want to; it hurts. And I'll do everything to -- I'll try everything, I'll take any help. But if I ever catch you lying to me again, then I can't anymore, I simply can't. You've got to grow up and stop blaming other people. I need to hear the truth from you, even if it hurts. I need to see you take responsibility. It wasn't Alice's fault. You did what you wanted, what Ana Jacobson wanted, not anyone else. And you did it when I was knocked out and bleeding, and you did it even though I begged you not to. That's something I'll always have to live with."