Every once in a while, I catch Christine hard-core staring at me. Am I a threat, an inspiration, or a conundrum to her? Why do I stub my toe or burn myself in the kitchen, and then I always look up and see those enormous blue eyes drilling into me as though her thick round eyeglasses could magnify their penetrating power?
Christine stopped trying to convert me a couple of weeks ago. This situation is more stressful on the Christians than they’d like to admit. There are only four of them: Alma’s bedridden with her concussion, Jessica is absorbed in her own fears, Peter is frustrated with his obsolete role of patriarch, and Christine is overwhelmed. She’s spending more time alone, playing hymns on the lodge guitar. She’s good. It sounds like a prayer.
The last time I spoke to her, I was trying to convince Christine to dance with us one night when the wine was flowing freely and DJ Joseph wanted to give us a good time. That might have been Itai’s birthday. I wasn’t drinking, but I was tipsy with the freedom of moving my body to the music. It felt tribal. The Israeli kids were all on the dance floor. I saw Jessica moving her shoulders to the beat, but she and Christine remained glued to their chairs, as heavy as pillars of salt.
I wanted them to experience the hedonism in their hips, so I sat next to them to dispense some wisdom or encouragement. Jessica fended off my invitation to the dance floor with a wave of depression disguised as superiority. I turned to Christine, and asked her if she danced.
“Well, yes, kind of,” she said in her tight German accent. She’d prefer it if I said that her accent was Swiss, because of the Israelis, you know. “I dance, but not like that! That is so not me!” Her laugh sounds like wooden window shutters left unlatched in a storm to bang sharply against a corrugated tin house.
“You know,” I suggested, “It’s OK to experiment. You’re in a safe place. We love you here. Try something that’s not ‘you’. That’s how you get to know yourself better. You don’t have to be yourself all the time.”
Well, that was the wrong thing to say.
“I like who I am,” Christine snapped. She immediately pretended to soften the chastity belt that slammed up around her virgin mind by smiling sweetly. The wooden shutters of her laugh clanged again. Since then, she’s been staring at me with her wary bovine eyes.
I’m used to being watched, so it’s OK. Well, it’s not, it makes me radically uncomfortable, but if I yell at someone for staring at me, they’ll just stare harder. I’ve made it OK in my mind by telling myself that people look at the things that they find attractive. Unfortunately, I don’t want people to find me attractive. I just want to be left alone; to move without judgement.
It’s massively unfair. The observed is forced into a contract with the observer. They find me attractive, they feel desire or jealousy or some stupid fiery emotion, and now I’m obligated to validate their emotions by being either more or less than who I am? Why? What do I get out of it? Well, there’s only one thing to do: take back the power. Observe the observer.
I’ve caught Avi staring at me intensely several times, too. He is definitely one of my favorites, but he always does the right thing, and he has a wonderful girlfriend. So, he’s not supposed to stare at me, which makes it that much more delightful. I love the way men look when they’re trying to pretend that you didn’t catch them staring. Such discomfort in preserving the ego!
But I’ve played that game of unrequited lust far too much in my life, and it’s boring. It’s just not fair to see the naked blackness of desire in someone’s eyes and to not be able throw a match into that powderkeg. Mindfucking someone is fun if that’s all you’re allowed to do, but (to quote the Six-Fingered Man), I’m a girl of action now. I can’t waste my time. I want my interactions to be more than just the mind or the heart. Maybe I’ll take the soul… that’s interesting enough to replace the physical. Maybe I’ll ask Avi for his advice on which of the four single guys I should go after. That’ll send his logical brain spinning into dark places.
I think I know the answer. Itai has a girlfriend at home, Moshe broke his back, and Ariel is too distracted with his own machinations. Judah is left. I bet that round ass makes a nice handful. But Judah is often in the company of Shira, who is Joseph’s girlfriend. Those three eat together, walk together, and sing together. I dearly hope that they sleep together, too, but I’d guess that the chances are low, considering Judah’s carefulness around Shira. More unrequited love? What’s that about? I need to get one alone.
Peter, the head Christian, called them a flock. Last Friday, over our communal Shishi dinner, we agreed that we were both lone wolf types, and that to be a sheep would be intolerable. His precise South African accent clipped the roundness of his vowels tightly. His fiercely honest eyes were almost always set on God. That night, his wife, Alma, was missing from the long banquet table, pouting in bed with a broken face.
With Alma gone, Peter indulged in twice as much wine as usual that night. Somehow, I always end up sitting near the Christians at the head of the table (probably because we speak in English while the others speak in Hebrew), so I had the pleasure of sitting next to Peter. After the meal, we enjoyed an excellent conversation about walking our own paths, and his kind face began to loosen with gentle intoxication.
He’s quite an attractive man; he has a tall, hearty physique and a shining smile. I caught him in the Kiwi uniform of well-fitted little shorts and big black galoshes the other day, and I can only hope that my lascivious stare conveyed my appreciation of what I observed. What a shame that’s wasted on Iron Alma.
Sometime during our conversation, our knees touched under the table. I slid my warmth and attention into that leg without moving a muscle, concentrating on the inviting orange quality of the space between us. It only took a minute for Peter to relax his entire thigh against mine, and we remained pressed together under the table for a solid half hour.
I enjoyed every second of feeling his hard thigh pouring warmth into me, but I don’t dare jeopardize my home here. I’ll take anything I can get from Peter’s frustrated masculinity, as long as he comes to me. And he won’t, poor fellow; he’s far too good. I’d offer him a blowjob if he didn’t scare so easily.
It is extraordinarily wonderful to me that I feel love towards everyone all the time now. It is entirely inappropriate that I would happily have sex with any adult in our little lodge, just to hold their dear little hearts close and kiss them all over. Even Alma. They’re all fucking adorable.
Is this agape love? Or nymphomania? Did the Mormon open the floodgates of my heart so that it flows indiscriminately outwards forever? Some might choose a middle road… I am either living an enlightened life of love or I’m a menace to society.