Dating Kosher

by Greene, Michaela

  “Uncle Marty, this is Ben. He’s my…” Simon took a deep breath, “boyfriend.”

  There was a gasp behind me, one of Simon’s siblings, surely.

  I sure didn’t envy Simon in that moment, but I was proud of him. I stepped toward him and Ben, having an overwhelming need to offer my endorsement and at the same time diffuse the situation; I was pretty sure neither Mitch nor Lauren had exhaled in several moments.

  “It’s good to see you, Simon.” I hugged my cousin, grunting in protest when he squeezed me too hard. Once I got my breath back, I turned to Ben. “And it’s nice to see you, Ben, we’ve met once before. I’m Shoshanna.”

  Ben smiled, showing his perfect teeth, earned through years of braces as a teenager, no doubt. “Good to see you. I brought this,” for the first time I noticed he was holding a cake. An apple cake: the traditional cake for Rosh Hashanah, signifying a sweet year to come. Susan, the hostess, was still frozen on the spot, so on her behalf, I took the cake and thanked Ben for bringing it.

  Apparently, I had started a trend in greeting the couple because right behind me, waiting to personally welcome Simon and his lover were my grandmother, Susan, Mitch, and my father. Lauren sulked in the corner. Thankfully, Simon didn’t seem to notice with all the positive responses he was getting. His relief was obvious and I applauded his courage; he had a lot more chutzpah than I had. I didn’t even have the guts to go stag to my dad’s wedding, for Christ’s sakes.

  Apple cake still in hand, I turned to commiserate with Bev over the evening’s happenings (and the evening had hardly begun) but she was suspiciously absent from the living room. Before I had a chance to even wonder at her whereabouts, the doorbell rang again. This time, it had to be Ari, so I turned back to the door. The introduction of Ari would be an anticlimax after Ben. But I was okay with that, especially since I barely knew Ari.

  I opened the door to see the man in question grinning from ear to ear, his arms weighed down by a sizeable apple cake.

  Oy, another apple cake, brought by my semi-unwanted one-night stand. Add that to the banana cake sent by uncle-shtupping Tippy and other apple cake brought by my newly-outed cousin and his lover and it was going to be a dysfunctional Rosenblatt family dinner to remember. Maybe skipping the buffet had been a mistake.

  * * *

  I had to give Susan credit: the dinner was spectacular in both presentation and flavor. After the hired servers had doled out the soup, we were invited to help ourselves to the buffet. Never being shy when it came to food, I loaded up my plate with not only my grandmother’s reliably delicious fish, but I also speared a slab of beef, a turkey wing and a smattering of sides before settling back at my seat at the dining room table.

  “Wow, I’d forgotten how you love to eat,” Ari commented loudly as though we had been friends forever.

  Shut up, I said to him inside my head. “Hmm,” was all I said out loud.

  “So what happened to Nate?” Lauren asked from the other end of the table.

  Seriously? What a bitch. I ignored her, hoping she would just lose interest.

  No such luck. “Shoshanna, I was talking to you.”

  I looked down the table to where Lauren was grinning nastily. “I’m sorry, Lauren, did you say something?” I returned the tone; I was in no mood to play.

  “Uh yeah, I asked you where Nate is.”

  The room was suddenly silent save the squeal of Mitchell slicing his slab of roast across Susan’s good china dishes. Could no one at the table help me? Christ. Ari’s eyes were burning into the side of my face, but I refused to turn and face him.

  “I don’t see how that is any of your concern.” I couldn’t think fast enough to come up with something clever. I just wanted to shut her up.

  “Lauren, don’t be like that,” Simon scolded his sister.

  She ignored him. “What? We liked him.”

  That did it. I let my claws out. “Speaking of obvious absences, where’s Mike?”

  She didn’t seem to see that coming, although how, I don’t know. She stumbled for several seconds but didn’t manage to get anything out.

  I wasn’t done, either. “What’s the matter, Laurie, did you unhinge your jaws and swallow him whole?”

  Mitchell stopped cutting his meat to laugh at his sister.

  “That’s enough, Shoshanna,” Susan said, sounding really pissed.

  I turned to look at my new stepmother. “I’m sorry. I would never pick a fight at your dinner table, but that bitch started it.”

  “Enough,” my dad boomed from the head of the table, ending the argument.

  Still angry and more than a little bit embarrassed, I turned back to what mattered most: my dinner plate. Reaching for the cranberry sauce, I spooned a huge glob onto my plate.

  As I dug my fork in, Ari leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I’d love to eat that cranberry sauce out of your belly button.”

  Seriously? This guy was so done.

  I scowled up at him, the cranberry sauce a quivering glob at the end of my fork.

  He leaned in to grab the food from my fork with his parted lips. There was no way I was going to feed this guy at my dad’s freaking Rosh Hashanah dinner. I jerked the fork back, launching the cranberry sauce until it dropped in my lap, on my beige suede skirt.

  Beige.

  Suede.

  “SHIT!” I hissed, grabbing the stuff with my napkin before launching out of my chair.

  Jogging down the hall to the bathroom, I cursed Ari the whole way. Why did he have to be so grossly inappropriate?

  By gently dabbing at the suede with a damp washcloth, I was able to get the cranberry sauce off before it set. Relieved, I checked my face in the bathroom mirror. My makeup looked okay, but there was something wrong with my eyes. Leaning in toward the mirror, I inspected closely for fine lines, but it wasn’t that. My face looked sad and clenched, my eyebrows pulled down into little knots over my eyes.

  I was stressed. And not just about the suede.

  I sat down on the toilet seat, suddenly weary. Why did I have to date such duds? Why did they have to be either so lame or just downright mean? Was it me? Nate had been cool, even worth pursuing if he had just had a better job. And been Jewish, although I guess if it got serious enough, he could convert. He wouldn’t be the first person to convert to marry a Rosenblatt: Mitchell’s wife had been Anglican until a few months before their wedding. A few Jewish lifestyle books and a dunk in the mikvah under her belt and she was a full-fledged Jew worthy of marrying a Rosenblatt.

  So really, Nate’s biggest flaw boiled down to his collar being the wrong color. Was that totally snobby of me? Of course, it was, but could I ever be happy with being the girlfriend or even the wife of an air conditioning repair guy?

  I caught myself cringing and sighed. Bev was right. She was being smart about men; Jacob wasn’t my type, but he did seem to be totally into her. They seemed to genuinely click, something I had yet to experience. Except with Nate, although I’d been denying it since the minute I’d met him.

  I sighed. I’d really fucked things up. Allowing myself one last cursory glance in the mirror, I left the bathroom to return to the dinner table.

  As I walked past the spare bedroom, I heard something, maybe voices. Turning to look, I saw my best friend making out with Jacob up against the far wall. The light from the streetlamp outside the window lit the room just enough so that I could see their two bodies crammed up against each other as Jacob practically devoured Bev’s face. Ew. Not wanting to be discovered, but not wanting other guests to have to witness the show, I silently reached into the room and pulled the door almost closed. Seriously, they could have at least shut the door.

  Still, it was hard not to be happy for my best friend.

  “Where is Jacob?” Susan finally asked about ten minutes later, looking up and down the table. No one seemed to have noticed two people missing. Slouching down in my seat and shoving a huge piece of beef in my mouth, even though my full stomach protested, I avoided answ
ering Susan’s question, silently hoping that she didn’t go searching for her son.

  “I’m really sorry,” Ari said for about the hundredth time since the cranberry sauce incident. He leaned in close to my ear. “I’d really like to make it up to you.”

  I seriously doubted it: mediocre sexcapades could hardly make up for an almost ruined four hundred dollar suede skirt. “If you really want to make it up to me, you can take me to Prada, I could use a new pair of boots,” I joked.

  He didn’t catch on to my sarcasm, his eyes narrowing as he smiled at me. “I’d love to take you shopping,” he said, his voice breathy, “There is nothing sexier than a hot woman trying on clothes for me.”

  I looked up at him. I had been joking, but he was dead serious. Did he have some sort of fetish or something? Not that it mattered…“Really? You think buying designer clothes is hot?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, shoving a forkful of turkey into his mouth. “Shopping with chicks is so hot. Mmmm.” He hummed as he chewed and I wondered if he was actually turned on. I was going to reach under the table to check but figured that might be over the line at the dinner table.

  Never being a religious person before that moment, I began to think that God was suddenly smiling down on me.

  Maybe this could work, after all, I thought, mentally visualizing Ari and myself in Prada; he in the chair holding his Amex and me, repeatedly exiting the change room in various stunning outfits, all of which he nodded his endorsement to.

  I was suddenly very turned on. And as though I were the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, in that very moment I wielded my power and promoted Ari from ‘one-night stand’ to ‘two-night stand with definite future potential.’

  * * *

  We were barely in the door when, after I had thrown my purse onto the couch, the frantic groping began. As Ari tugged at my blouse, I fumbled to close the door behind me.

  “You are so hot,” he mumbled into the flesh of my neck.

  After the giant meal, I was full and a little gassy, but nothing some Tums wouldn’t fix. “I’ll be right back, don’t start without me,” I said as I peeled away from him, trying to appear sexy while holding in a burp.

  He smirked at me, standing in my living room, a huge hard-on pressing against his chinos. He proceeded to unbutton his shirt as I turned toward the bathroom. I closed the door behind me for some privacy; there was nothing sexy about taking anti-gas medicine.

  Armani was sleeping in the sink but as I came in, he opened his eyes and stretched out his front paws in greeting.

  “Hi sweetie, Mommy’s going to get some tonight,” I told him, scratching him the way he liked. He butted his forehead against my hand and began to purr. I gently scooped him out of the sink and placed him on the floor. He meowed in protest and scratched at the door, so I turned the knob and opened it a little to let him out.

  I took a couple of Tums and chased them down with a gulp of water taken right from the tap. I undid the rest of my blouse buttons, allowing my très sexy bra to show through. Ready for love, or at least an hour or so of lust, I turned out the light and left the bathroom.

  “What is wrong with your cat?” Ari was still standing in the middle of the room, but without pants. His hard-on had disappeared, but I knew it would only take a few seconds to return.

  I leaned seductively against the doorframe, bending my knee and placing my stiletto heel on the wood; guys love that look. “What do you mean what’s wrong with my cat?”

  “He’s got bald patches,” he looked from Armani up to me. Then he seemed to forget the cat as he rose to his feet. “Wow, you are so hot.”

  “He had surgery, they had to shave him.”

  “Ohhh, I like a shaved pussy.” It was obvious Ari wasn’t talking about the cat anymore. He stepped over to me and pulled my skirt up over my thighs, revealing my thong. “Maybe we could see about finding us a razor.” He squatted down and pressed his face against the front of my panties and hummed, the vibration of his voice against me making me hotter. Despite the fact that Bev would be the only person to ever remove any of my hair down there, his was a sexy proposition, worthy of considering for another time. Maybe he would like a trip to Brazil…I pondered, as his hands reached around to cup the cheeks of my ass.

  I was ready to move things into the bedroom, so I grabbed his hands with my own and pulled him up so he was standing in front of me. I leaned into his chest and took one of his nipples gently in my mouth, rolling it with my lips.

  Suddenly his body jerked away from me. “Jesus Christ!” he hollered.

  I looked at him. “What?” I looked around, stunned.

  “Fucking cat.” He lifted his foot and twisted his knee to reveal a huge reddening gash running along the back of his calf.

  “Oh my God, he’s never done that before!” I looked up and there sat my cat on the arm of the couch, nonchalantly cleaning the offending paw.

  Before I had a chance to even chastise the feline, Ari stepped toward him and knocked him clean off the couch with his arm.

  “Hey! What the fuck are you doing?” I jogged over to Armani, who was obviously pissed but hopefully not hurt. I crouched down, putting my arms protectively around him. He growled, but I knew it wasn’t at me.

  “That fucking thing gouged me!”

  “I don’t care asshole, you don’t hit my cat!” I hollered as tears sprung to my eyes. “He’s just had surgery; he’s not himself.” I stroked Armani’s head, trying to calm him.

  Ari stepped closer. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to upset you, but the thing took a chunk out of my leg.” He put a hand on my shoulder.

  Armani growled louder and then hissed.

  “What the fuck, cat, I’m nowhere near you.”

  Picking Armani up, I took him into the bathroom and lay him in the sink—his favorite place. Sitting on the edge of the tub, I scratched his head until he purred.

  “You got any Bactine in there or something,” Ari said, his voice muffled through the door.

  “I’ve got some facial toner. I’ll bring it out in a second.” Grabbing the bottle and some cotton balls from the medicine chest, I left the bathroom.

  “So you really like cats?” Ari said as he bent over and dabbed the blue liquid on his wound, cringing at the sting.

  I dropped onto the couch, not feeling so sexy anymore. “Obviously, or I wouldn’t have one.”

  “I fucking hate cats,” he said as he straightened and tossed the cotton ball on my coffee table. “Now more than ever.”

  I crossed my arms across my chest. “Well, that’s a problem.”

  He looked up at me and smiled. “Nah, we’ll figure it out.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “You can’t hit my cat.”

  He sat down next to me. “He started it.” He sounded like a ten-year-old boy who’d been caught fighting with his classmate.

  “I don’t care, you can’t hit him. You could have really hurt him.”

  Ari’s arm slid across my back. “Aw come on, baby, it’s nothing a new pair of shoes couldn’t fix, now is it?”

  He was trying to buy me. Maybe a couple of weeks (or even hours, I hated to admit) it would have worked, but suddenly, I realized there were more important things than shoes. Or clothes. Or even diamonds.

  I wiggled away and looked him in the eyes. “You can’t buy me a pair of shoes to pacify me. I can’t be bought.”

  He pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Oh no? You seem like the type who can. It’s okay. I’m not really looking for a wife or anything. Just someone to spoil for a while. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  My heart began to pound in my chest. “What are you talking about?”

  I wanted to rip the smirk off his face. He stretched his arms and laced his fingers behind his head. “You’re hot, I’ll give you that. And you’re a good lay too, so if I have to keep buying you shoes to keep you happy, so be it. I can afford it.”

  Bile rose in my throat but I forced myself to swallow it
down. I took two deep breaths before I said, “Get out.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Calm down. I didn’t hurt your cat, let’s just finish what we started.” He reached toward me, but I slapped his hand out of the way and stood up.

  “I mean it, get the fuck out.”

  He shook his head and stood up to face me. “I’m not going anywhere, Shoshanna. You’re going to calm down and then we’re going to go in the bedroom and finish what we started.”

  He wasn’t moving. I began to get scared. He could overpower me physically, there was no doubt. But would he go so far as to rape me?

  I grabbed my phone out of my purse. “If you don’t get the fuck out of here, I’m calling the police.”

  That got him moving, but not to the door. “Come on, baby, what’s the problem?”

  I stepped back but never took my eyes off him. “I want you out of here,” I said, my voice ragged and panicked. I’d never been so afraid in my entire life.

  “Fine, fuck, I don’t know what the problem is. We’re just trying to have a little fun, then your cat goes psycho and now you’re kicking me out?”

  He reached for his pants. I’d never been so relieved to see a man put his pants on before. Finally, he left, muttering about me being a psycho bitch.

  Not even caring what the neighbors would think, I slammed the door closed behind Ari, hearing the bang echo down the hallway. I turned the deadbolt and slid across the chain, just to be safe. I took a deep breath before returning to the couch. Armani jumped up beside me, looked at me plaintively and offered a “meow?” I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I scratched between his ears for several minutes, trying to calm myself. My breathing came in ragged gasps and my hands shook like it was the morning after a night of way too many martinis.

  Suddenly I didn’t feel like being alone, and the company of my cat wasn’t going to cut it. I picked up the phone and dialed Bev’s number.

  After three rings, I was greeted by a pensive “Hello?”

  “Hey, feel like coming over?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  She cleared her throat. “Shosh? What’s going on?”