Minyan: The minimum number of adult males (ten) necessary to maintain a temple and pray.
Shiksa: A derogatory term for a non-Jewish girl.
Sheggitz: The male form of shiksa.
Shul: The Hebrew word for temple.
Siddur: A holy prayer book.
Tallis: A ceremonial scarf.
Rebecca’s Place, 1978
Susan St Aubin
Hal’s stomach growled loudly as he and Evelyn followed her lover, Rebecca, up the stairs to her apartment. Now he was annoyed rather than excited, as he had been before Evelyn had decided they should all leave their bed for Rebecca’s. Something about a jewel Rebecca usually wore in her pierced tongue, which she had taken out and left at home. Evelyn wanted her to wear that gold frog with tiny rubies for eyes. It made no sense to him. Rebecca had even brought Chinese food for them, which Evelyn had taken out of their oven, where it was keeping warm, and packed back into the shopping bag she now carried. He felt like he was in a cave when they got inside Rebecca’s place — the ceiling seemed so low he ducked reflexively. Once Rebecca switched on the light, it wasn’t as low as he thought, but when he saw the loft bed he realized he probably wouldn’t be able to sit up straight there.
“I demand food now,” Hal said. Since this seemed to be an evening of demands, why not make his known? He was ready to spank Evelyn if she didn’t agree; in fact, imagining the feel of his palm smacking her flesh excited him. It could, he thought, work as well the other way around, with Evelyn feeling her flesh smack against his palm. As you hit, you are hit. Or maybe Rebecca should be the one to spank Evelyn; she needed retribution for this sudden change in plans, as well as for the spanking Evelyn had given her back at their place. He surprised himself with this sudden desire to watch Evelyn be punished by another woman, who would also be punished by the flesh smack-back, but the Herald, as Evelyn liked to call his cock, was twitching as if He knew this scene and was eager to get on with it. Hal himself had another hunger that was more pressing. He grabbed the bag of food from Evelyn and began putting the lukewarm containers on Rebecca’s tiny kitchen table.
“We should heat them,” said Evelyn, turning on the oven while Rebecca lit the gas heater in the corner.
Hal reached over to swat Evelyn’s rear. She’d set the stage: what she gave Rebecca, he could give her. He was satisfied with the sting of her ass on his palm.
“No time,” he said, opening a random container, which seemed to be chicken in some sort of sauce. “I want it cold. Now.” He wolfed it down until his mouth and throat were on fire.
Evelyn handed him a glass of water. “That looks like Kung Pao chicken, Rebecca’s favourite. North Chinese, hotter than a curry.”
The water actually seemed to increase the burning sensation at first, although as he drank, his mouth gradually became numb.
Rebecca was eating fried rice out of another container while Evelyn patiently waited. “Aren’t you hungry?” Rebecca asked her.
“Nope,” Evelyn responded. “First things first. Rebecca, go put your gold frog back in your tongue.”
Rebecca obediently disappeared into her bathroom, where Hal heard her brushing her teeth, then gargling. In the long silence that followed, Hal imagined her wrestling the frog into her tongue. He couldn’t quite understand how it was fastened in there. The whole idea of tongue piercing made him gag.
Evelyn opened another container. “Mmmm. Mongolian beef,” she said as she nibbled. “The trick is to take very small bites.” She passed the box to Hal, who, his mouth still numb from the chicken, shook his head.
Rebecca came out of the bathroom and stuck out her tongue. “See?” she announced. “It’s in.”
Hal felt uneasy looking at it, but Evelyn poked him in the ribs. “You’ll like it, really.” She gathered the food containers and stuck them in the oven, then stepped over to the cushions piled in a corner beside the loft bed, and took off her jeans and sweater.
Hal, seeing a flash, turned to find Rebecca holding a camera, which made a strange grinding noise as a picture slid out of the front. Of course, a Polaroid, ideal for sexy pictures which no photo-processing employee would have to see.
“Perfect,” said Rebecca. “I got a great back shot, Evelyn.”
Hal watched the photograph gradually turn from grey to shades of brown and pink as Evelyn’s ass surfaced, a process that was, he thought, a bit like watching someone come to life. Caught in the act of slipping off her jeans, she seemed real in this picture, even though she was playing a role Hal wasn’t familiar with.
Then, another flash as Rebecca took Hal’s picture looking at the picture of Evelyn.
“Clothes off, everyone,” Evelyn ordered, clapping her hands like a teacher.
Rebecca handed Hal the camera so he could take a picture as soon as she was undressed. He carefully framed a full frontal shot of her with one hand on her hip, her mouth closed to hide the frog. Then Evelyn grabbed the camera while he undressed, and took a shot of him and Rebecca sitting side by side on the cushions, knees modestly held to their chests.
“Now stick out your tongue,” she told Rebecca, moving in closer to capture the frog on film. “Look at her, Hal. Look at the frog.”
Hal wondered what they would think of all this when they saw the pictures in twenty years. He saw the flash, watched Evelyn put the camera down, then felt her hand confidently stroke the Herald, and wondered why He rose to meet the lips of this stranger, formerly his lover. Hal felt left behind. He’d barely had time to get to know Rebecca, and now even Evelyn seemed unknowable.
Flash. Rebecca got a close shot of Evelyn’s mouth around the Herald, while Hal blinked in the sudden light. Evelyn sat up, took the camera away from her, then guided the Herald into Rebecca’s mouth. If we’re a triad, thought Hal, then the Herald must be the hypotenuse, the line that ties it all together. I’m the base, Evelyn the right angle, Rebecca the side. My hypotenuse is what everyone wants. Thinking this made him feel less like a bystander. He was the base, in control, the beginning, and the end; he would conquer that frog. He felt the Herald thrust deeper into Rebecca’s soft and willing mouth, and was relieved to sense the jewel as a small but intriguing firmness. His eyes closed as he listened to the whirr of the camera as Evelyn took pictures.
Rebecca felt her tongue, weighted with the frog, as something apart from her with a life of its own as it danced over Hal’s penis, which didn’t seem a bit bothered by the worried look on Hal’s face. Her tongue kept going, increasing the pressure of the frog as it slipped over and around the cock. She liked the notion of separate body parts functioning at will, full of surprises for the main brain/mainframe. She’d picked that word up from Hal, the computer expert: mainframe, the brain of the whole computer system. Suddenly she saw each body as a system, with interconnected yet separating functioning parts, and thought people must have designed computers in their own image. She made her tongue move carefully so as not to injure either the part or the mainframe, and began thinking mathematically about the triangle of Hal, Evelyn and herself. Where would the jewelled frog fit? An angle, or one of the lines connecting the angles? She couldn’t remember the geometric terms, but she knew her jewel was the connection that had first attracted Evelyn to her and, through Evelyn, she’d met Hal. It was Evelyn’s desire for the jewelled frog that had brought them here, to her place; the frog was the connection that held the three angles together.
Evelyn took pictures, framing and creating what she watched. “Take him out of your mouth,” she said, and Rebecca obeyed, laying her tongue, jewelled frog up, beside the pulsing Herald so Evelyn could shoot a picture. “Better let him rest a bit,” Evelyn whispered in her ear, licking the rim. Rebecca lay still a minute, then tentatively kissed the Herald before she sucked him back inside.