Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

She spread out the blanket, handed me the bottle to open and sat at my feet as I took my time to figure out how the corkscrew worked. The cork broke, and I had to push half of it back into the bottle. We drank wine with fragments of cork in it, bits that I swallowed in silence and Orit spat out in disgust. And then, without saying a word she took off her shorts and pulled me on top of her.

Had she not insisted on us doing it again soon after our first, not very successful attempt at lovemaking, we would have returned home bitterly disappointed. After months of passionately exciting foreplay, gradually doing everything but, penetrating her was unexpectedly difficult, hurried, unsatisfying. And I was left wondering why she hadn’t bled.

Maybe it’s because of the bike, Orit said, and then she let me into the secret that was to make our sex life so wonderful: the tip of her bike saddle presses on a spot that drives her totally crazy. It’s not inside her, inside isn’t so important, she told me. Then she took my hand and placed my finger on that exquisite point between her legs. Rub your finger gently around it, pressing it just like the saddle does, she explained.

We called the spot ‘Magic’ on account of the magical sensation Orit felt whenever it was touched.

With her help, I discovered exciting places in my own body, areas it would never have occurred to me to explore. Who would have thought that a gentle caress just beneath my scrotum could be the source of such intense pleasure? Or licking the inside of a thigh?

From the moment she decided to do it, Orit transformed us from a couple of enthusiastic kids into a pair of passionate adults. Within a few days I felt I was living in a different world. I couldn’t see the point of spending time with my friends smoking in our village or, for that matter, with Orit’s gymnastic teammates at school. The two of us wanted to be together twenty-four hours a day. We simply couldn’t wait to be alone.

Orit’s parents were more broad-minded than mine and I often slept there with her, in her bedroom. When she stayed at our house my mum and dad made up a bed for her in the living room and I’d sneak down there during the night. On rare occasions my parents went to Tel Aviv, leaving me alone in the house. The moment I knew they were going, I’d pass Orit a note in class and she’d return it with a giant blue smiley face and just one word: Yes!

A dazzling light that constantly shone from Orit’s eyes permeated our love and was even there when she smiled, still on top of me, after our passion was utterly spent.

Orit’s love was so natural that I accepted my worthiness of the love of such a wonderful girl as a given. It was during that period that I realized I wouldn’t be growing any taller and regretted it. But my adoring Orit, ignoring the fact that she was slightly taller, embraced and kissed me saying: you don’t know how good it is to hug and kiss someone of the same height. But then she noticed the look of surprise on my face and was quick to reassure me: not that I’ve had any other experience, but it looks so clumsy in the movies when he’s so tall and she’s so tiny. We’re so good together, face to face, chest to chest. That was all she said, and just let the blue of her eyes envelop me in pleasure.

We fantasized about dropping everything and running away to live together. We talked about a farm in the desert, the summit of a mountain, even the Yarkon estuary, like Gi and Go in Orpaz’s Daniel’s Voyage which we read together, in her bed and mine, falling in love with the love of the two protagonists. When we finished the book we decided that, just like them, we would go to the Yarkon estuary and pitch our tents there. It was the start of the Passover vacation, matriculation exams were looming, and extra lessons were being offered at school. Instead, we took a tent just big enough for two, got on the first Eilat–Tel Aviv bus, excited, holding hands, planning how we were going to spend the next few weeks on the white sand where the river flows into the sea. From the central bus station we went straight to the spot we had fantasized about, only to discover that the estuary was no more, just lawns and a sea port complex.

We slept on a narrow strip of sand until wardens woke us up and told us that sleeping there was prohibited.

On the way home we called ourselves Or and Ar, Or of course for Orit, and Ar for my surname, Ari, a small homage to Gi and Go and the vanished estuary.

A short while after the metric exams, an interval that was far, far too brief for both of us, I joined the army.

Yogev Ben-Ari! The platoon commander bellowed, clutching a blue envelope in his hand. Sir! I yelled back excitedly. Do fifty! He ordered. Orit’s letters, sometimes two a day, had me doing more push-ups than any other cadet in the paratroops, and I did them at speed so that I could get my hands on the blue envelope and what it held. Orit knew how to describe her sexual longing for me so openly and palpably that it literally hurt me physically, far more than my shoulders hurt from carrying a heavily loaded stretcher. I got such a hard erection just thinking about her–which I did almost all the time–that route marches and runs became a nightmare, with my erect penis trapped in my pants.

Orit was serving in the air force in Tel Aviv, where she shared a small apartment with three other girls. From time to time we were stationed at our brigade’s home base just a few dozen miles away from where Orit was living. On such occasions, I would scale the camp’s perimeter fence after lights out, hitchhike to Tel Aviv, and sneak into her apartment. As I was showering, cleansing my body of its army sweat, Orit came in wanting me to make love to her standing in the shower, reminding me once more of the advantages of being the same height.

Orit had this sultry moan that sounded like ‘Oi’. At first, when I thought it was a signal of pain, I was alarmed. But when I realized my mistake, alarm turned to amusement and the moan got louder and louder and ‘Magic’ swelled to my touch. As Orit wriggled with excitement, imploring me to enter her, the ‘Oi’ was already heavy, and though its pitch remained a very low alto it was loud enough to wake not only her three friends in the adjoining rooms, but also the landlord in the next apartment. After I’d put my hand over her mouth and been fiercely bitten for doing so, I never tried that again. I just waited for the ripple of spasms that suddenly made her whole body quiver, then for the silence, and then for that hint of a smile, as she continued moving with obvious pleasure. Open your eyes just a little, please, I would say. But that particular request went unanswered. It was just her smile that became wider and which she tried to suppress by pressing her face into my neck. A little blue, I insisted. She raised her head, glanced at me, and the now visible blue melted me with love.

I got back to base, sometimes having to run for miles through deserted streets, smuggled my way into the camp before dawn, and started a new day without even a moment’s sleep. In my mind’s eye I could see her smile and the blue slit of her eyes, while my ears continued to ring with the sound of her moans of desire.

Whenever we had time to talk, we planned our future together. Orit didn’t know whether she wanted to be a dancer or a painter. Perhaps, so that she’d also be able to make a living, she’d study at the Wingate Institute and become a sports instructor.

I said I wanted to be a Buddhist monk–but with a wife, I quickly added, seeing her look of bewilderment. Random encounters with books about religions of the East drew me, as if by magic, to a place that was as far away as I could possibly imagine from the grim military reality that I had to endure in Lebanon and Gaza.