"So we need to bring them something?"
"That is customary."
"Who said?"
"The Chief Rabbi of Poland," I replied with a smile. I was in a good mood.
"So we’d better get something for Ido and Einat as well," he said, beginning to calculate the hole in his pocket.
"What can we get?" I hissed.
Only the year before, Segev and Dalit had come to us for Rosh Hashana and arrived with an expensive bedding set as well as lavish gifts for the girls. I knew there was no choice. I remembered then that just the day after, when we’d had a fight, Itay had gone to see Hila and Oren, his friends that I couldn’t stand, and I’d met with Hanoch, a guy I’d met in an online chat room. I remembered Hanoch trying to kiss me and how I’d run off crying. I felt I’d grown up since then. A year ago, I’d been frightened by a kiss, and now I’d had wild sex I n Manny’s examination room without flinching.
Ironically, Itay had arranged to meet with Oren and Hila the next day as well. A year ago it had been unplanned, spontaneous, but this year they’d planned in advance to meet on Simchat Torah. Itay tried to convince me to come this time, but didn’t try too hard. There was an unwritten agreement between Hila and myself that she wouldn’t come to us and I wouldn’t go to them unless it was a special event.
I saw now that I was free as a bird on Simchat Torah. The minute I could, I called Manny. Itay preferred to take the girls for a walk rather than go to the mall to buy gifts, and I took advantage of my time alone, shopping, to call Manny.
"Hello?"
"Manny?" I asked hesitantly. I was afraid he had forgotten me overnight.
"My Sharry…" he said in a loving tone and I melted. I had tears in my eyes.
"Manny..." I couldn’t talk due to the excitement I felt.
"What's going on, Sharry? Everything alright?" His loving tone of voice changed into a worried one.
"Everything’s fine," I answered. I didn’t want to worry him, even for a moment. "I'm just so excited."
"Me too, me too."
"I can’t stop thinking about yesterday."
"And I can’t stop thinking about you, Sharry… You don’t understand what you’ve done to me."
"You don’t understand what you’ve done to me."
"You just put a spell on me... you witch, you. Lucky I’m not working today. I wouldn’t be able to keep my mind on my work."
"Are you on call tomorrow?"
"No."
"So… Do you want to meet?"
"You're not with your family?"
"No, my husband’s taking the girls to visit some friends."
"And you aren't joining them?"
"It’s better that I don’t."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean there’s a better chance of peace between Israel and the Palestinians than of Hila, my husband's friend’s wife, and I having a peaceful lunch together."
"Because I know you, I'm sure that this Hila must be a horrible woman."
I smiled. "You're a wise man."
"So what do you want to do?"
What I wanted to do involved no more than four walls and a mattress, but I didn’t want to sound too desperate. "I don’t know," I replied thoughtfully. "Do you have anything in mind?" I figured the same thoughts were going through his mind.
"You could come over to my house for breakfast."
"Will your kids be there?" I dreaded the prospect of my wild sex fantasy dissolving into a family meal.
"No, of course not," he assured me. "Just you and me," he explained, and I was happy.
I wrote down his address, and I couldn’t wait for tomorrow to come.
The next day, I nearly lost my mind waiting for Itay to leave with the girls. It seemed to take forever for him get organized… for them to set off. I was already nervous, and I didn’t want to be nervous. I wanted to get to Manny’s as relaxed and comfortable as possible.
When I parked my car in front of his home, my heart was pounding. I was excited in a way I hadn’t been for years. I was afraid the spell would break, that in daylight, the magic would dissipate.
Manny opened the door, hugged me warmly and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I was glad to see him, but I had a strange feeling, a forced feeling. Less than forty-eight hours ago, this man entered me wildly on the exam table in his clinic, and now he was hugging and kissing me like an old friend, not a passionate lover.
I went inside. Manny lived in a private house in Kiryat Ono. The house was clean and had slightly old fashioned decor.
"Do you want something to drink?" he asked.
"Cold water, if you have some," I said, and put my bag on the large dining room table.
Manny went into the kitchen, and I walked around the large living room. I looked curiously at the impressive collection of paintings and sculptures that adorned the walls and sideboard. I remembered Manny’s late wife had been an art teacher.
Manny came back with a glass.
"These are all your wife’s work?" I asked eagerly and began to sip from the glass. I was thirsty.
"Not all, but my wife made most of them."
"Very talented," I said, swallowing a mouthful of water and continuing to drink.
"Yes," he answered, looking at me, hypnotized, as if the most perfect work of art was standing in front of him, sipping a glass of water.
"Thank you," I said, handing him back the empty glass.
Manny put it on the sideboard between a decorated porcelain plate and a statue of an African woman. He probably knew by heart what was on the sideboard. He was able to put down the glass without moving his eyes, which were locked with mine. The forced and awkward feeling evaporated in a moment and almost before I realized what was happening, we were scrambling to get at each other, trying to compensate for the entire day we’d spent apart.
He kissed and hugged me fiercely and intensely, as if trying to draw me to him. We were so hungry, so eager, we didn’t even get our clothes off. We began to make love without even managing to achieve the simple, automatic act of removing our clothing. Manny pushed his hands up under my dress, rubbed my breasts, caressed my buttocks and kissed my belly.
I only got as far as removing my shoes and, after a few minutes of wrestling, we just lay down on the rug and made love. I pushed my hand inside Manny’s clothes, and when my hand touched his hardness, he let out a strong, arousing groan. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I had to feel him inside me again. I guided him toward me, and I felt him moving inside me. Except for my shoes, I hadn’t removed any clothing, even my underwear. Manny was also dressed, only his pants and underwear had been pulled down. Every time I’d slept with Itay, or even Guy, I was naked. I’d always lived with the narrow mindset that sex was something you did completely naked, and suddenly I’d discovered how clothed sex could be several times more stimulating and exciting… as if all of our being was related and dependent on those two organs knowing how to connect with each other in an almost ethereal manner.
Manny finished, and I felt how wet my panties had gotten.
"I have to wash myself," I said to him. I smiled, feeling embarrassed and delighted all at once.
Manny pulled me up and came upstairs with me. He gave me a towel, and I went into the bathroom adjacent to Manny’s bedroom.
I washed my underwear and took a shower. I got out of the shower wrapped in a towel, and I put my dress and wet panties on the cabinet, trying to guess whose vanity it was, Manny’s or his late wife’s.
I went out into the hall and called to Manny.
"Stay up there," he shouted back. "We’ll have a picnic in bed."
I smiled to myself, thinking, The picnic takes place in bed, but sex takes place everywhere else.
Manny entered the room. He was holding a tray loaded with crackers, cheeses and fruits. He placed the tray on the bed without taking his eyes off me. "You’re so appetizing," he said with a smile.
I smiled back and felt my cheeks flush.
We sat on the bed and fea
sted on the snacks that Manny had brought. Manny enjoyed feeding me. "You have to try this fig," he said, slipping a piece of ripe fig into my mouth. Every time he fed me, I kissed and sucked and licked his fingers, and then he licked them himself immediately, as if tasting the taste of my lips.
"I'm thirsty," I confessed after a few minutes.
"Oh, how could I forget the drinks?" Manny jumped up. "What do you want to drink?"
"Cold water."
Manny took the tray away and returned a minute later with a bottle of cold water and two glasses.
I drank the water eagerly. I was very thirsty after all the crackers and fruit. A few drops of water dripped from my mouth. I tried to stop them with my lips, but they ran down my chin to my neck. Manny leaned in close and began to lick at the rebellious droplets.
I put the glass on the nightstand and removed the towel. Manny stood and watched, as if transfixed by my naked body.
"You have a spectacular body," he said in a choked voice, and began to caress me.
"You don’t think I'm fat?" I fished for a compliment. "Look at all these tires," I said, and I pinched my stomach, which was not as flat or as firm as it used to be.
"You have the body of a woman," he said, and began to kiss and lick my breasts and belly.
"Tell me." I was really thirsty for compliments, "As a surgeon who’s seen hundreds, if not thousands -”
"Your breasts are of the finest I’ve seen," he cut in and immediately cupped my breasts with both big hands, the same hands that had massaged my breasts so many times before without either of us feeling anything.
"Undress," I ordered him.
"I don’t know if that's a good idea." Manny suddenly looked taken aback.
"Why not?" I rose out of bed, and sat up in front of him as I stroked his face.
"I'm not exactly the model of the year," he replied with a chuckle.
"I'm far from the model of the year too, but here I am, sitting naked in front of you."
"You're really not far from the model of the year," he said to me with a smile and went back to caressing my body.
"Thanks for the compliment," I replied, blushing, "but you exaggerate."
I started to open the buttons of his shirt. I leaned in close and whispered, "I’ve never been so attracted to any man as I’m attracted to you right now."
Manny helped me remove his clothes until he stood naked in front of me. He was, indeed, far from being a model, but I loved every ounce and every fold of his body. He was big, and I loved it. I loved the feel of his big body covering me fully. I loved the feeling of being small and protected next to him, above him and under him. For more than an hour, we kissed, cuddled and fondled until he finally entered me again. He was afraid to crush me and bore his weight on his elbows, but I so enjoyed the feeling of his big body over me. I couldn’t stop hugging and caressing him.
We lay in his bed, naked and cozy, for over an hour, until I woke up and remembered that Itay and the girls would be home soon.
My panties were still not dry, so I drove home without wearing them, which only heightened my excitement the entire way home.
When I arrived, I was horrified to discover that Itay’s car was already in the parking lot.
I entered the house and made extraordinary efforts to behave normally.
"Where have you been?" Itay asked me when I came in.
"Oh, I went to Orly’s," I claimed. I knew there was no way Itay would ever try to verify that story.
"How are they?"
"Great," I replied. "When did you get back?"
"Twenty minutes ago."
"Did the girls eat yet?"
"Do you think it’s possible be at Hila’s and not be stuffed with food?"
I smiled to myself. Hila could choke on her designer kitchen. She'd never experienced as many orgasms as I’d experienced today. I remembered that I was still naked under my dress. I casually went to the bedroom, pulled out a pair of panties and went into the bathroom.
I came out dressed and smiling. I felt I could beat the system.
"I'm hungry," I said. "I haven’t eaten much today. You want me to warm something up for you too?"
"No," Itay replied, tapping his full belly. "I’m stuffed."
Itay watched me from the living room and came over while I washed some dishes. He hugged me from behind and said, "You look good."
"I feel good!" I replied. I smiled and turned to him.
He hugged me and pressed himself against me in a way he hadn’t for so long. Interesting, I thought. I'm probably radiating sexuality.
"Itay," I whispered as I pushed him away. "The girls are playing in the other room."
"Don’t we have any grandmas we could send them to?" He was really eager.
"Come on, Itay," I said, trying to cool him down. "They’ll be in bed before long."
He smiled. "So we’ve a date tonight?"
I was sure that by the time night came, his enthusiasm, as it had so often before, would disappear. But this time, Itay waited eagerly for the girls to be in their beds. The second they did, he came to me eagerly.
I devoted myself to him, but I couldn’t help but feel I was cheating.
Cheating on Manny.
CHAPTER 14
November and December 2008 were two magical months.
My relationship with Manny grew stronger. Thanks to Ahuva and because Itay was so immersed in his work, he had no idea what was happening under his nose, and Manny and I managed to meet at least three times a week.
Usually I went to his house. On Saturday mornings, when Itay was out with the girls, I would spend two to three magical hours with Manny. We ate, made love and watched TV, naked in each others’ arms. After a few weekends, it really became a pleasant routine, and I felt at home in his house.
As time passed, we were able to calm our sexual hunger a little and drifted into deep emotional conversations. I told Manny about life with Itay, about the difficulty of raising two children without help and my desperate need for love. I told him everything;about the chat room, about Hanoch, about Guy, about The Marker Café blog. I showed him the pictures I'd posted on the site. He looked at them intently and mademe swear never to publish them again. He didn’t want any other man to see me like that… and it moved me. I liked the fact that he was jealous because of me. I guessed he wondered, but didn’t ask, if I was still having sex with Itay. I didn’t want to arouse suspicion, but in any case it wasn’t an issue because Itay continued to take more interest in his work than in me.
Manny, in return, told me about his late wife, his children and his job as a doctor. His wife died as a result of organ failure. She had severe diabetes that was only discovered at a very late stage and then not treated properly. Then Manny decided to pull himself together along with his wife and they went on a diet together, but it was too late Batya’s kidneys were barely functioning, and she eventually died.
I admit, I was a little jealous of Batya. Even though, according to Manny, they weren’t intimate in the last two years before her death, which explained his mad hunger for me - he had been celibate for nearly three years, it was obvious that he’d loved his wife very much. She was very different from me. First of all, in terms of appearance, I was totally out of her league. She was overweight and out of shape. She invested most of her efforts in her home, Manny, her children and her art. When Manny talked about the way she took care of their children, or about the excellent food she cooked, my heart ached. I knew I would never be able to fit into the big empty space that she’d left. I didn’t like cooking, and I didn’t have the patience for homemaking - why bother when you could buy what you needed at Ikea? And I loved my daughters, but needed a lot of love for myself too, as evidenced by the fact that I was having a raging affair with an incredible man. I wasn’t so much the nurturing type… I was more the type that liked being taken care of. Manny, who for years had been used to having a nanny/wife, enjoyed the reversal of roles. He enjoyed pleasing me in any way.
&nbs
p; Manny's children had never even met me or heard about me, but he said they had begun to realize that he was dating someone.
"What can I do? I can’t hide the fact that I’m insanely happy," he said to me with a smile one day. He didn’t tell them anything because he didn’t want to confront them with the issue of having an affair with a married woman. At this phase, at the beginning of the affair, he felt that they were just happy that he had someone. Although I hadn't met Yuval and Yael, I felt I knew them well. Manny would talk about them with so much love in his eyes that it moved me. I didn’t doubt that Itay loved our daughters, but I didn’t feel that he had the same connection with them as Manny had with his children.
Every once in a while, we would go out. I was a bit apprehensive because I was afraid of meeting someone who knew me, but these outings always had a bonus: Manny, who would be careful not to touch me and not to show too much affection for me in public, would come at me like a hungry beggar the second we were alone. It always excited me.
But in Tel Aviv, as it always is in Tel Aviv, you’ll always meet the person you least expect at the least suitable moment.
On a Tuesday in December of 2008, Manny and I had a date at a nice restaurant in Tel Aviv not far from my office. It was a busy week for both of us, and we couldn’t meet at all otherwise. It really was an impossible task to sit across the table from him without touching him. His eyes indicated to me that he was burning inside.
While we were waiting for our food to arrive, my eyes crossed paths with Hila’s. We would try so hard not to meet each other, and now I had the bad luck to bump into her during my all-too-short date with Manny that already felt like it was not enough.
"Hi Sharon!" I almost heard her exclamation when she turned to me and looked at me carefully, and then at Manny. "What are you doing here?" she asked me after she finished examining us.
"Having lunch with a client," I replied, making an extraordinary effort to hide the tremor in my voice. My foot, which had been busy caressing Manny's thigh under the table, quickly went back into my shoe.
Confession of an Abandoned Wife - Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 11
