By the time I allow a man to touch me, he’s half out of his mind. And since I’m no shrink and have no time to diagnose anyone, I’ve developed a simple system to find out which of the applicants is worthy of me, and when I should stop living in lah-lah land.
It’s very simple. I turn the man’s balls blue. And don’t any of you women believe the story of aching blue balls. There’s no such thing. It’s man’s invention. A conspiracy if you will. All to make us, women, feel bad about their suffering. To make us feel guilty so we would pamper them.
The only man who ever really loved me told me about it. Oh, I actually told you about him—Natasha’s husband. I wish he would pass by me now. He’s fleeing me like one would a flame. Coward. The scared moth… who was still afraid.
My name is Noa Weisberg.
Soon, Timothy and the mystery around him will arrive. It’s very weird I made it before he did. That’s never happened, and we’ve been meeting up for years.
Timothy is an old acquaintance of Natasha; they’ve known each other for years. Natasha was worried Timothy might be interested in me. His interest ended up being only professional. Only. He’s seventy-four and a former elite forces officer. He left for America a few years after his army service, and no one really knows what exactly he did there. There was talk of illegitimate going-ons. Vailed, cagey hints I collected through the years every time his name was mentioned. I don’t truly know, but I don’t care, either. He’s only ever been fair with me—even when he didn’t really have to be. He has the ability to pay me for projects, and that’s why I’m here. I wasn’t planning on asking questions or allowing the person I was waiting for to screw me over financially. After all, we are talking about five million dollars before taxes. My part, I mean. It’s been four years of us working together, and if we make it, I’ll be on the horse. Galloping. All four legs flying.
That’s how I feel truly alive.
Only, it almost got me killed.
It all started here, in the Elizabeth coffee shop on Galgali HaPlada Street in Herzliya. It was a very special parliament meeting. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but these last years have turned us into a people of parliaments. Of all kinds. And the parliaments have to meet at cafés. Preferably in one that sells stale pastries and cheap, cold coffee. Otherwise, what could you possibly complain about?
That is what they do in parliaments: from the moment the head complainer bangs his schnitzel hammer on the table, the deliberations begin. The head is most often the organizer and founder of the parliament. He or she also lack the common trait all other members share: they never complain. They always have a smile, and always understand and follow everything before any discussions are had, then, after hours of sitting silently through arguments, yells and cussing insults, it’s their opinion everyone seeks. It’s the same every week.
These parliaments are scattered all over Israel. On Saturday mornings it’s the old ladies who meet in Aroma; midweek mornings it’s the wives who drive Jeeps their husbands bought them as they sit in coffee shops in Ramat Aviv and Ramat Hasharon. In Savion, people stay in their houses—there, the real shady stuff goes on. I say that because I’ve been to at least twenty living-rooms in that place. Plus, one bedroom. Natasha’s. She was away on some kind of crusade to save Japanese seals, while her husband Eran and I had more fun than I think I will ever experience again.
And that fun is only a phone call away.
If he even answers.
The younger crowd gathers during the night, sitting on random benches outside the convenience stores at gas stations and rest-stops. It’s a third of the price of cafés and there aren’t any neighbors to disband them due to excessive noise. The poor gas-station worker doesn’t care that the place is littered with teenagers. Neither does the glassy eyed convenience shop cashier. Quite the opposite. The teenagers’ conversations remind them of their own youths. Both of them already experienced everything the youths so excitedly retell.
“Good for them, huh?” I heard the gas jokey tell the cashier at the Yellow convenience store after I’d bought coffee on a late night when I was driving home on fumes. I’m still sure I saw a tear at the corner of his eye. He looked a wreck—that I clearly remember.
I’m making a mess of things, so let me clarify a little.
When I went to Sinai, I came back home with thirty-five phone numbers from guys who had hit on me there. No joke. Thirty-five. At first, I’d wanted to take sweatpants and a slew of different loungewear that were anything but revealing, however, my friend said she wasn’t going with her old auntie, but with her hot friend, who she hoped would allow her to have her leftover dazzled castoffs. So, she convinced me to take my green and blue bikini. And there it ended.
And by ended, I mean it only just begun.
In Timothy’s parliament there were no whiners. People spoke quietly. They were men of action. Superstars. If only I could be a fly on the wall listening in to one of them…
My whole life I’ve hung around people who were older than me, and the age gap only grew as I did. It started with me, a young teenager, going out with guys who were nineteen or twenty, then escalated when I was a soldier for the military police. I served as the manager of my
