by Eli Hai
“I don’t think it’s the stock market you’re interested in, right?” she laughed. “You probably want to know what happened to your money.”
“Of course! Have you seen someone who isn’t interested in his own money?”
“Your money has almost doubled its value,” she answered succinctly and dramatically.
“Wow!” he said admiringly. “It’s barely been a month! Do you want to tell me that I now have about fourteen thousand dollars? God, I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it, my friend. These days, the stock market is hot.” She enjoyed his excited response.
“Way to go. Seriously. Maybe you should sell the shares and realize the profit?” he suggested, even though he didn’t know what his money was invested in.
“The moment you put your money in my hands, I’m the one who decides what to do with it. But don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” she assured him.
“It’s nice of you to think about my money even though it’s such a small sum,” he thanked her, tensely anticipating her response. Would a derisive note creep into her voice?
“Look, let’s be honest. Of all of my investment portfolios, yours is the smallest, but that’s what makes it the most challenging. For me, that’s the most important thing.” She smiled in satisfaction.
Jeff looked at her in obvious adulation. He always admired people who controlled the secrets of investment. Shares, bonds, and options were terms he’d only heard of. Specializing in the field always seemed to him beyond his comprehension.
“Is it hard?” he asked.
“Is what hard?”
“The stock market. Managing investment portfolios. Is it hard work?”
“The work itself is fascinating. It keeps you in suspense and demands concentration and endless follow-up. Take your eyes off the ball for one second, and boom, there goes the money. There’s no doubt that it’s an exhausting job, especially mentally. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious. I always thought managing investment portfolios was too complicated for me. I’ve always counted on my body more than on my head,” he said, flexing his right hand and pointing at the bulging muscle with his left one.
“Yes, well, I don’t have your muscles, so I have to use what I learned. It’s certainly easier than the jobs you do,” she laughed, without bothering to hide her admiration of his masculine body.
“I owe you something, too,” he suddenly remembered.
“What?”
“A chair or a table, I don’t really remember. One of them needed repair.”
“Oh, yes. The table in the dining room. One of its legs is wobbly. I’d appreciate you coming by as soon as possible. It looks like it’ll collapse soon, and I’ll have nothing to eat on,” she laughed.
“If it’s good for you, we can go now,” he suggested and hoped she’d agree.
To his surprise, she did.
“Don’t you need tools?” she wondered.
“Don’t worry. Glue will be enough. On the way, we’ll go into a hardware store and buy some. You don’t need anything more than that.”
When they finished eating, she wanted to pay for the meal, but Jeff refused and insisted on splitting the bill. “After what you made for me in the stock market, I can afford it,” he joked, and Eve acquiesced with a soft smile.
Fixing the table, which barely looked like it needed any fixing, took only a few minutes. When he finished, he noticed her standing close by, her face glowing with happiness.
“Would you like to stay for coffee?” she asked timidly, and he nodded with a tense smile.
“Great. I really appreciate your help,” she said softly and came toward him. She was so close that the smell of her perfume flooded his nostrils. He inhaled deeply to calm himself, but instead, felt himself getting dizzy. His expression grew serious when he took that last step toward her. He felt her body, almost weightless, float and press against his. And then, he held her head and pressed his lips against hers in a long, uninhibited kiss, as though asking to infiltrate her heart. He heard her moan and sigh softly as she relieved him of his shirt. His chest bare, he squeezed her to him and embraced her wildly, almost ripping off her dress.
“No, not here…let’s go to the bedroom. I feel more comfortable there,” she whispered.
She took off her clothes and lay down on the bed, waiting for him to come to her. Her green feline eyes followed every move he made. For a moment, he stood over her, studying her. His eyes were worshipful. First, he looked at her long, shapely legs, then concentrated on her flat stomach. And when he made his way to her breasts, he felt his breath hitch. They were small and round, and at their center, were two sweet nipples that looked like two, cheeky wildflowers. Then, he stared at her face. He was willing to swear that he’d never seen such a beautiful face, not even in the movies. Her lips were full, sensuous, and inviting, hinting at what was to come. When he finally looked at her eyes, he understood why. Her eyes were alight with indescribable joy. Just then, he knew she loved him. He hurried to lie down next to her and their bodies converged.
“I love you,” she admitted quietly after they’d made love, still panting from the exertion of their lovemaking.
“I love you, too,” he answered unhesitatingly, and kissed her, willing to swear that he could kiss her like this forever.
“From the day I saw you, I knew something strange had happened to me. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure it was love. Only after I found myself thinking about you constantly, did I realize I was in love with you,” she said, and rested her head on his chest. Jeff looked at her silently.
“And what about you? When did you realize?”
“Me?” He was surprised. “Didn’t you notice how I looked at you? I almost fell from that window,” he laughed. “And since that wonderful moment, I’ve been thinking about you day and night, hoping we’d meet one day.” Then he loomed over her, peppered her eyes, her nose, and her lips with countless kisses, and added, “But it was your eyes that captivated me. They totally hypnotized me.”
“Stop,” she laughed, amused by the way he’d kissed her.
Jeff stayed over at Eve’s place that night. They couldn’t tear themselves away from each other.
The next morning, they both dragged themselves to work exhausted and thought about each other constantly. They both realized they’d found love.
The financial and social gaps between them, the fact that she was two years older than him, all of these didn’t bother Jeff at all. He knew his love for her was pure. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. At work, when Rico teased him for catching a rich chick, Jeff only replied, “I love her so much that I don’t care about her money.”
And Eve, as her love for him grew, felt as though her work had become a secondary, almost unimportant factor. It reached a point that she sometimes forgot to sell or buy shares, thus inflicting damage on her investment portfolios. That didn’t go unnoticed by her superiors, and one day she was summoned to their offices.
“What’s going on with you?” one of the managers asked.
“What do you mean?” she asked with faux innocence.
“You’re not on the top of your game. Something’s happened to you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” she insisted.
“We’re talking about the fact that, lately, you haven’t been focused on work. Your instructions are late, and as a result, our investors are suffering substantial losses.”
“You’re exaggerating. These are routine things. It happens that sometimes reactions are late. It’s happened before. This isn’t the first time,” she said defensively.
“Maybe to others, but not to you. And I know what I’m talking about. It’s true that other brokers make mistakes, but those are mistakes of judgment. Yesterday, you sold one option. At the beginning of the trade, the option was traded at thirty-five dollars and sixty cents. The transaction was executed at the end of the day when the value of the option went d
own to thirty-three dollars. Why?” asked the vice manager.
“Unfortunately, I made a late decision. All day long, I deliberated on the matter, and when I decided to sell, its price started to go down. It’s not such a big deal.”
“Do you really not understand or are you pretending? We’re not talking about the fact that a lot of money went down the drain! Had it been a mistake in judgment, okay. You’re allowed to make mistakes, too. We’re talking about something that you’re going through, something that makes you late to work. As far as we know, you make most of your decisions the previous day and execute those decisions in the morning. Yesterday, you came to work late, when the value of the option started going down,” the vice manager reproved her.
Eve was silent. He was right. She had nothing to say in her defense.
“We expect you to snap out of it and return to function like you always have. The private phone calls that you do during the day are a disturbance to you, and you’re better off postponing them to the evening,” the manager concluded the conversation.
Eve knew that every one of their claims was correct. Jeff now filled a place previously filled by her work—the secret of her professional success, no doubt. And now, most of the time, she thought of him and fantasized about him. And when she wasn’t thinking of him, she was talking with him on the phone. She couldn’t wait to see him at the end of the day. In the evening, she’d arrive at his apartment as fast as she could, pick him up in her car, and then they’d spend time together until the small hours of the morning. Their relationship grew stronger, and the future looked rosier than ever.
“I think it’s about time that you move in,” she suggested one night.
“For now, I’m happy where I am. The transition from a small, modest apartment to a lavish one like yours is too quick for me. I need time to adjust to the idea. You have to understand, I’ve always relied only on myself… Let’s wait for another opportunity.” He remembered Rivka’s visit, as he rejected her offer, and couldn’t imagine how quickly his life would change.
Chapter 9
“Love is pleasurable, like nothing else. Like a deceiving potion carrying the lovers and beloved through high clouds, to endless skies, to the top of the world. It possesses cures and power, which can strengthen the body and soul toward a dawning day. And sometimes love is evil, sucking the broken lovers to the depths of the earth, to the bottom of a pit. It brings with it grief and despair and sleepless nights. It has many faces, love does. Sometimes, it laughs; sometimes, it cries. Sometimes, it is calm; sometimes, stormy. Mostly, it is soft and caressing, but also harsh and searing. Man mustn’t fear it, for it is the purpose of his life.” Rivka reread the paragraph from the book Dvora gave her last night.
“Read,” she’d demanded. “A little philosophy won’t hurt you. Maybe you’ll finally understand the difference between what’s important and what isn’t.”
And Rivka read and read, greedily swallowing every note and every word, and the more she read, the stronger became her inner turmoil. Her mind was feverish with thoughts, her head threatened to explode. When she finished reading, her mind was made up, and she was as resolute as ever on the way she had to choose. She was in love, of that she had no doubt. Was her love strong enough to bring her to the top of the world, or would it drag her into the depths of the earth?
For two nights, she couldn’t sleep, not even for one minute. She tossed from side to side, desperately trying to find a position that would allow a few minutes of rest. When sleep eluded her, she sat on her bed and waited for the morning to rescue her from her suffering. When dawn came, she got out of bed and wandered around the house doing nothing. She continued this way until late afternoon when fatigue overcame her, and she fell asleep on the couch in the living room.
Then she dreamed. As in Jacob’s dream, she saw angels climbing down a ladder from an illuminated heaven. They all came to her as she sat on a chair in the center of a large courtyard. When the last angel climbed down, they started flying around in circles, until, suddenly, she noticed that one of them was Jeff.
“Jeff,” she exclaimed happily. “You’re an angel. I always knew you were an angel. Come to me, my love. Come to me, my angel.”
“Shhh…be quiet. I’m not an angel. I’m flesh and blood, like everyone else,” he whispered in her ear, then shed his white wings, threw them aside, took a chair, and sat down beside her. When he shed his wings, she saw the tailored suit he was wearing. Only then, did she notice her outfit: a white wedding dress covering her body.
“Indeed, you’re not an angel,” she agreed with him. However, after studying him carefully, she added, “But you’re the groom, and I’m the bride. And we’re both sitting beneath the canopy. You’re mine, and I’m yours.”
“You’re right, you’re the bride, and I’m the groom,” he nodded and slid a gold diamond ring on her fourth finger.
Suddenly, she noticed the angels had climbed up the ladder again, and each, in his turn, disappeared into a dark black hole that had opened in the skies. She and Jeff were left alone. Here was the opportunity she had been waiting for, to spend time with him alone. She raised her slender hands and softly stroked his face for several minutes. Then she stroked his hair, until, suddenly, she gripped his neck tightly and pulled him to her. The strong, muscular man surrendered easily to her strength. She pulled off his clothes, and to her delight, he didn’t protest.
“Take it! Take my virginity, Take it from me. Deliver me from it. Do with me whatever you like!” she screamed at him.
He leaned over her, docilely obeying. She felt his muscular body press tightly against her own, felt his large hands spread her legs. Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced her narrow hips, like a knife penetrating her body, threatening to cut her in half. She wanted to cry, but then the pain subsided, replaced by a sense of pleasure that she’d never felt before. When he finished, he rolled off of her and lay down beside her. Just then, she felt calm and peaceful, until the blood began to trickle. First, it trickled from between her legs, then from every part of her body. She tried to stop what had become a gushing torrent, but in vain. She saw how the wave of blood that left her body washed the parched earth, which devoured it and turned red. When she looked for Jeff, she was disappointed to discover that he’d disappeared into the black hole like the other angels.
“Jeff, help me!” she shouted in panic, raising her head to the sky.
To no avail. Jeff wasn’t there to answer.
Just then, she woke up, jumped, reached out, and felt her face, belly, thighs, and legs. When she finished, she examined her hands and discovered that it wasn’t blood, but sweat pouring from her entire body.
“What was that?” she muttered in fear.
She ran to the sink in the shower. First, she washed her face, then looked at herself in the mirror. Gazing at her reflection, she couldn’t believe this face was her own. She looked gaunt and tired, so weary that even the convulsions had ceased. Just then, she made up her mind. When she did, she finally calmed down. Tonight, God willing, inspired by the holiday, she would realize her love. Her body trembled.
“Rivkel, time to light the candles. Come, Papa is blessing,” she heard her mother call her.
She hurried to the kitchen. She wanted to feel the atmosphere of this special day and hoped that Hanukkah, the miracle holiday would not pass over it.
“Baruch ata Adonai Melech Ha’Olam, she’asa nissim le’avotainu bayamim hahem be’zeman haze,” she heard her father bless the lighting of the candles. Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who performed wondrous deeds for our ancestors in days of old at this season. When finished, they all sang the traditional “Maoz Tzor.”
When her parents left the kitchen, she stayed put and continued staring at the burning candles. Three thin pillars of wax protruded proudly from the menorah that lit the big house in a melancholy light. Their tiny flames flickered in an endless dance, as though they were happy about the holiday.
It was a Sunday,
the second candle of Hanukkah. The festive celebrations passed over her so far. Her body throbbed with agonizing pangs of love. Her pains were severe, intolerable. But tonight would be different. She’d decided. A decision not readily accepted. There was still a way out. If she chose to marry Avraham-David, no one would know her secret. She would get her life back, and it would be comfortable and uncluttered. Like all girls of the Hasidic community, she would marry, bear children, and raise them in the way of the Torah. Her parents and her family would be happy and would support it. When she kissed her husband, her conscience would be burdened, but she’d get over it. She wouldn’t be able to live a happy life with a man she didn’t love, but her happiness was nothing compared to that of her parents and brother.
Yet, there was another way: to follow her heart, as Dvora had said. Completely abandon her way of life for a guy whom she’d desperately fallen in love with. Recently, she’d completely abandoned the religious laws. She hadn’t prayed, nor blessed. Faith in the Creator amounted to one blessing, or more correctly, request: to win Jeff’s love. During those days, he was in her bones like a raging inferno, slowly consuming her heart and soul. She had to stop thinking of him, if only for a moment. There were times when she longed to go outside, run to him, embrace him tightly and cry out to him that she loved him. But she didn’t do so. She was so afraid of the consequences of the meeting that it prevented her from doing so.
But tonight was different. Tonight was her night, her very own night. The die was cast. Tonight, she would go to him! Even if her legs crashed and she went blind, she would crawl in the dark on her knees and wait at his door. Already familiar with the nature of love, she would give herself to him until the end. She’d give him all of herself, both body and soul. She could no longer live a life of lies. God was following her from above at every given moment, that was for sure. The Almighty gave her life to live, so he wouldn’t punish her. And what is sin? Was love a sin? God was merciful and compassionate and, therefore, would favorably judge her! God gave her a heart to love, and she would go after her heart! Tonight, God willing, when darkness fell, and after her parents fell asleep, she’d go to his apartment again. She no longer cared what happened there. Secretly, she hoped what happened to Dvora would happen to her: that she would lose her worthless virginity. Tonight, she would realize her dream. And if not, and she left the apartment still a virgin, her life would never be the same again. In fact, there would be no turning back after that. She had practiced and memorized the sentence she’d read. “Even hard and searing, man mustn’t fear it, for it is the purpose of his life.”
