Home. She’s probably having a fit. Who needs this insanity. And all the money too.
“Come.” He touched me lightly.
I still played innocent. “Where to?”
He threw me a hard look.
“You’re just like a child. A stubborn one. Come on, it’s only to say hello to her. Just to say hello. To get to know her.”
“Not now… some other time,” I murmured, rising and putting a friendly arm around him. We stepped outside, pausing in the doorway for him to regard me with a despairing smile.
“Just come say hello to her. She’s waiting for you. You can arrange to meet her some other time… it isn’t nice to stand her up…”
And patiently, expertly, without losing his calm, he steered me into a narrow side street. All at once I was back among the shoe stores, only on the opposite sidewalk. Boots and sneakers filled the dark display windows. In the back of one of the stores a small bulb still burned. We stepped into the hallway of an apartment house. The man pressed the handle of the first door and opened it. “Just say hello to her. Act your age! What are you afraid of? This is strictly on the up-and-up.”
I was in the lit store. I could see myself reflected in its mirrors, thin and gray, the scratch on my face like a string of tiny pearls, my tie over one shoulder, my jacket badly creased. Next to a divan were some inclined stools for trying on shoes and shelves with samples of ladies’ footwear. Empty shoe boxes and white tissue paper lay scattered on the floor. Shoes had been sold here a short while ago, there was still a human smell about the place. She stood at the back of it, near the cash register, examining a shoe with a spiked heel. Close up she was not so pretty; her perfume was cheap and there was a small scar by the side of her mouth; but the special charm of her eyes, that humorous gleam, was still there. No choking up this time. Which thought turned to slow desire. She looked at me calmly, tossing her head with a deep, natural grace so unlike the manner of a whore. She sat on the divan, about my age, perhaps a year or two older, and placed one leg on the stool in front of her, her pant bottom rolled up to reveal a plump, smooth, creamy-white foot. I stepped toward her, still holding my black briefcase. She glanced at it with a bright, intelligent look, waiting smilingly for me to put it down. I laid it on the carpet and sat on the stool like a salesman.
“What’s your name?”
“Natalie.”
“Natalie? Really? How lovely… are you Israeli?”
“For the time being.”
I laughed abruptly.
“My name is Tsvi.”
“You’re not from Tel Aviv?”
“I used to be. Now I live up north, near Acre.”
The need to leave a trail of lies in self-defense.
I stroked her foot. Her skin was warm, sweaty, smooth to the touch. I undid the buckle of her old, worn shoe and slipped it off her foot, which she let lie, white and puffy, on the slope of the stool.
“What size do you take, madame?” I asked suddenly, feeling myself go scarlet.
Firmly she set down her other foot, presenting me with it. I unbuckled the shoe, slipped it quickly off, and threw it aside. With an awful lust I fell upon her feet, kissing the dust, the Nubian loess, the faint stink of callused skin, the smooth underarch, the human flesh. Swooning, I licked them, my pants bursting with desire, with my hideous love for her, lifting her feet and sticking them into my mouth, nipping them lightly while she laughed with alarm and strange pleasure, her eyes shutting light. I dropped from the stool to the carpet, still licking and biting, beside myself, dizzy with desire, grunting like an animal, abandoning myself to the depths. Glassily she stroked my hair and hauled my thin tie in like a rope. Suddenly, though, she took fright and pulled her bare feet away.
“Don’t. Stop that! Get up and come over here.”
And I did, filled with a passion I had never felt before, struggling to undo her blouse and pants. She pushed my hand away and slipped out of her pants herself. Brown lingerie parted along a hidden zipper, revealing a large, scar)’ brown navel. My love, I whispered. My dearest.
“Help me, please.”
She didn’t get what I meant.
“Can you help me?”
She made a face. “What do you want?”
“You know. Help me in.”
And standing there I began to come even as I went down on her. A failure. Here too? Panic took hold of me. She spread her legs wide, reaching for my wet cock, grimacing with disgust.
“Wait a minute! Hang on there. You’re shooting your load. Hang on!”
I buried my face in her, trying to hold it, feeling her warmth, her legs wound around me, shuddering with each jet that squirted as though from a little heart, still coming while I kissed the white fabric of her blouse, searching for her eyes which she denied me.
At last she threw me powerfully off.
“Was I in you?”
“Sure, sure. Don’t let it worry you.” Her voice was suddenly harsh, impatient. “Don’t tell me that this was your first time…”
“Of course not. What makes you think that?”
She rose, looking away, and quickly zipped up her pants. She ran a hand through her hair while casting me a querying look of concern. I zipped my pants too, took out my wallet, and gave her the thousand-pound note that I’d gotten from father.
“This is what he and I agreed on.”
“Who’s he?”
“That man…”
“Since when does he do business for me? Hand over another thousand.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You don’t have it? What do you mean you don’t have it?”
“I don’t have it.”
“Then give me your watch.”
“My watch?” I was flabbergasted. “No way!”
“The hell with it then. Give me five hundred more pounds.”
“I tell you I don’t have it.”
“What’s in that briefcase?”
“Just papers.”
She sat down by the cash register, slipping her feet back into her unbuckled shoes, her butched head held high. Where had I seen before that look that flared in her eyes?
“Let me see your wallet.”
Her voice was dry, tough, but controlled.
I laughed nervously and showed it to her. She went through it quickly, found five hundred pounds, and started to take it.
“Leave me that money. I need it to get to Jerusalem.”
“You can hitch.”
“No, I can’t. No one will stop for me…”
I spoke fearfully, fawningly, a stranger to myself.
Someone tried the front door of the store.
She reflected, replaced the money, and handed me back the wallet.
“I’m letting you off this time,” she scolded. “But it isn’t nice to take advantage like that. You look like a decent type… let’s have none of your tricks next time…”
“I really am sorry… next time… I didn’t realize… do you always hang out around here?”
Her eyes smiled.
“You’ll find me. But no more funny stuff, please.”
A middle-aged man in a custom-made suit opened the door, bowed hurriedly, and shut it again. I took my briefcase and left, walking quickly with my head down, not looking where I was going, losing my way in the vacant streets until I found the station again. I joined the small line of people waiting for the Jerusalem bus. The wind had died down but it was colder now, with fog instead of dust. A few students and tired commuters stood alongside me. Feeling empty inside, I leaned against the metal railing of the platform. Someone reached out to me across it. It was the short, swarthy man with the link chain.
“How was it?”