Looking Down The Well

When I left it last, the affair with The Clarinet Player was dizzily driving towards adead-end. Even while staring at him spread out on my bed, fully acknowledging that he is a sweet, good-hearted fellow with a satisfactory build, pleasantly skilled in the oral sex department, and a wonderful conversationalist, I knew it just wasn't it.

Not that I was or am looking for THE IT, as in Princess Bride-esque love or what have you, but more an animalistic it, a raw, chemical it, the kind of it that would lead me to call in sick to the office in order to spend more time between the sheets.

Yeah, this definitely wasn't it.

It was a darling tumble in the hay, as far as these go, because the sex was excellent and there was a very instinctual attraction. But it was like looking at an emptied candy wrapper. I had already marked the metaphoric "V" on the fantasy, and it left me content, but not addicted.

As he was still sleeping, I was thinking how to either elegantly break it off, or even better, keep him around on a low-presence basis. After all, neither of us had expressed explicit interest in a meaningful or even exclusive relationship.

Of course, when he woke up and I dangled this topic in front of him, all emo hell broke loose.

"Is that what it's about? You want to sleep with other people?" he asked, seemingly appalled.

I myself was squeamish, for the words "other people" when coined together in this manner, seemed to be an entry-level indication of a fledgeling relationship.

Oops, I did it again.

Hand me the aspirin, because this will leave me with a headache.

"That's not what I just said."
And it really wasn't.

I had simply made it clear that I was well on my way to celebrating a year of independence after finally ridding myself completely of what may turn out to be the prototype for the worst boyfriend ever, and that I was happy this way - on my own and at large.

As for exclusivity, we had never discussed it, so why would he expect it?

Fast forward to a week and some after the incident, and he is offended and backing away, brushing me off. I have enough people I regularly ignore in my life, I thought to myself, and picked up the phone to text him and make amends. Eran said that in this situation, much like with a frightened puppy, an SMS may be a safer choice than an actual phonecall.

Another brush-off, even when I text him in Hungarian(don't even ask). My efforts go unrewarded, until finally, this week, he rings me.

I don't know what the hell happened with us, whatever "us" was, but I know that just because I don't crave couplehood with him it doesn't mean we can't be cool with one another. I don't want him to take it that fucking hard, anyhow. I don't need more males in the 03 shit-talking about what a heartless bitch I am, thanks.

He says he's been having a difficult time, and that he didn't mean to ignore me or brush me off, and that he is trying to understand. We talk a little, and everything is swell, and I have a feeling that we may be walking towards an Oslo of sorts, a calm return to friendship with the open option of sporadic sexual encounters on the horizon, until it comes.

"So guess who I ran into?" he says.

"Benny Sela?" I venture. "I hear he's been trolling around our parts."

"No," he says slowly. "I ran into your ex."

"Who cares?" I scan my nails for any visible polish chips while praying for the subject to magically change.

"Well, he came up to me and we had a little talk..."

I already know I am about to get pissed off. The question is, to what degree?

"And...?" I milk him.

"And he said I've wronged him, and that it's not cool. He made faces at me, you know. Said he would have acted differently."

"Really?! You don't say...How have you wronged him, exactly?"

"He says I should have...checked with him first."

At this point, not only am I extremely pissed at The Evil One, who has poked his pathetic head into my world again in the form of a social cockblock, but also at this poor, wretched fellow, for being passive enough to go along with this guilt circus. He is losing cred with me, and fast.

"REALLY! Wow. I feel like stock at a cattle show! It's been a fucking year, so I don't know where he gets the nerve to come up with this melodrama bullshit. Like you or anyone else need his permission for anything...You're not even that close as far as casual friends go!"

I am enraged.

"I know."

"So why didn't you tell him to just fuck off?" I wonder aloud.

"Because he made me feel weird. He was, you know, making faces."

"Yes, you've already mentioned that. Anyway, he's a dick. I'm sorry you had to put up with his hallucinatory aggro bullshit. Talk to me if you wanna do something over the weekend."

And with that, I hung up, suddenly understanding a whole fucking lot.
And I already have a feeling he won't call, because he is a coward.

God, just when I begin to think that maybe Matan has cooled off and perhaps had managed to get over that evolutionary hurdle to becoming a true man, he proves me oh-so-wrong. Just when I thought maybe sometime in the near future we can be chill with each other again, instead of just plain chilly, he flashes the grand neon "IDIOT" sign again. Way to go, asshole.

I wonder just how much sex I am being denied because of his big mouth and apparent concern for the ever-flimsy Male Code.

Which is just as well, considering the fact that my time with The Clarinet Player also taught me a few things about what I need, thanks to the process of elimination. While the sex with him was great, there were a few things that I had become accustomed to in these past few months, that were thrown out the window with The Clarinet Player.

The sex was very much Vanilla, and any straying on my part led to a shocked expression on his face, in the least. And so, when I disrobed in front of him one afternoon and sweetly instructed him to get down on his knees and eat me out, his reply was the kind that Baby doesn't like to hear from the boys.

And to top it all off, he suggested that instead, I do him the favor.

Honestly, men...Come on. Sex should never be an act where you're keeping tabs and scores. It isn't your bank balance. And nothing turns me off more than this attitude, or in general, displaying lack of sincere love and respect for the regal pussy, the very core of the fucking fields in which we flower.

As I put my clothes back on, I thought of R., who would get down on his knees without question. Now here was a fellow that had respect for the feminine abyss in all its glory. And he was better at spoiling it silly, anyhow.

And, true, with him I had achieved an outlet for exploring some more aggressive sides of myself, something that dear old Matan could never handle, by the way. I found myself missing him, at least where sex was concerned.

So after a week of waiting to hear a cry of manly affirmation from The Clarinet Player, or any evidence that would be contrary to his being a total chickenshit, I found myself knocking on R.'s door. As luck would have it, I was wearing boots, a known soft-spot.

If before I had simply enjoyed the overall vibe of dominance, now I had more motive to actually kick it into full gear. I guess Joni Mitchell was right about not knowing what you've got until it's gone, or until you find yourself engaging in highly standard, conservative sex. It also helped me realize that the mental block I had encountered with R. thus far, of his niceness getting in the way of me fullfilling the nasty with him, had quickly dissolved.

All it took was one band geek, and I am soaring.

Of Mermaids & Malignancy

It has been a hopeless week I am climbing out of. I am still dripping wet with panic, but I am beginning to see a little bit of what people like to call the light at the end of the tunnel.

I am trying very hard to be an optimist, even though this tunnel is fucking never-ending. For over two decades I have been scratching at the surface. Like trying to dig out an escape route from prison using a miniature teaspoon. I don’t understand how people can tell me I have a pessimistic outlook on life when after so many years of disappointment and humiliation I am still here, fighting on, wasting ammunition on a battle where the outcome is never clear.

I am probably the most fucking optimistic person you have ever met.

The first sign to quit, after all, came pressing rather early, in kindergarten. But tumors get removed, and you limp on and re-learn your walk. The first time I understood that this might not be the world for me, it was when I was five or six and I realized, at last, that mermaids, unicorns and centaurs don’t really exist.

Ever since then, I’ve been trying to bring them back to life.
Maybe if we lump together enough tumors cut out from elastic flesh, we could make a mermaid.

They just wont leave you alone in this place. They will mark you with ballpoint pens, ripe for the cutting.

It may sound rotten, but when I was ten, I wasn’t concerned with the future, simply because I assumed the world would crumble to bits by then.

I am quite surprised, frankly, that we are all still here.

I wish we could talk, even though old lovers are of no use to me. What could you possibly say when you understand absolutely nothing?

I am trying to piece things back into form. Trying to heal this sickness, to scrub everything clean. I have even seriously considered quitting smoking. I like entertaining that idea, until the thoughts of my dwindling funds and nauseating duties to society pull me back to my usual pack-a-day habit. I have quit buying smokes, though. My room once more smells like it did in middle school, before I picked up the charming habit.

I wish it was still possible to build a tent from blankets and pillows to hide in. To build a fortress in my bed. It's funny how as beds get bigger, the options become smaller and smaller.

The morning news warns of an upcoming Big Bad, as a result of naughty play in Gaza. I almost can’t wait for the next war, Summer Session 2007. Carnage and carnations. Husky Eyes will be visiting soon. He may not be the most reasonable man, to come here, true, but if there is to be a war, I find nothing more fitting than for us to be sleeping together like we did during the last war.

Sex and war...It’s a little bit like asphyxiation and orgasms. When men feel that close to their final demise, to THE END, they come like they know this is their last chance, their greatest exit. Like they have to somehow push and live on through a wheezing, coughing climax, going into premature rigor mortis, cock-first.

Sex and war, liebe und anarchie. Kisses and katyushas, missiles and moans. That was summer, and I wasn’t even in the war zone for the better part of it all.

But even at a safe distance, it made me live intensely.

Now, in a time of national post-war coma and relative quiet(we are still at the gates of hell, its on every map) I am sporting a mysterious 38 fever that comes and goes, a guilt complex the size of the Vatican, and a long list of casualties.

No mermaids here.


It’s all a matter of trades and barters. Paralysis for action, panic for temporary love, silence for laughter because you’ve got naught better to do.

Oh My God, It's a Greek Tragedy!

Something green and blue is glittering at me from the sidewalk. I kneel down in order to peer, half in love with it already, only to discover to my horror that the regal glow belongs to a dead bird, one of those painfully beautiful ones with the metallic feathers.

When I was little I used to see them swoop by flowers, maybe they were getting their nectar jones out then, I don’t know. I used to have this craving to sneak up on them in order to see them from close up, but they being birds, were smart enough to flee before I ever had the chance.

Now, here was my big day. The poor thing was fucking glued straight to the pavement, as if it had tried to smash directly through it. The metallic green and blue feathers and sleek black beak were laced with little droplets of blood, and I was reminded of my nail polish bottles.

The bugs hadn’t yet gotten to the now-expired specimen, clearly. Must have not been dead for long. I looked and looked until finally I sighed loudly, stating mainly to myself that this was a sad, sad day.

No one gives a shit about a dead pigeon, but this...This was the goddamn pageant queen of birds, not that I knew it by name.

Beautiful things have no staying power.

For some reason this makes me think of The Clarinet Player and the sad, beautiful music he makes. Such hard work it makes his teeth shift in their place, he says. He has the most beautiful hands I have ever seen on a man, with crescent shaped white parts and everything. Smooth, without a ridge. Some women would be quite envious.

The saddest thing is I know we will never work out.

All signs point to yes, but my intuition is screaming no.

Our first big night out, I convince him to skip out on picking up his elderly father from the airport. "Come spend the night with me instead," I say. "Let him take a cab."

I sometimes don’t know if I say things because I really want them to happen, or I am simply checking just how far certain individuals are willing to go for me.

Wait, that’s not entirely true in this case. I want to go home with him. Not to any particular home, really, it’s more of a conceptual thing. I want to fuck like crazy. With him, yes. I don’t know if I could ever explain it, but with some people I just feel this insane, almost animal chemical compatibility, like all my systems are sounding off, MATE IMMEDIATELY. It all boils down to our immune systems and genetic baggage and what his genes have to offer mine, I know, but it’s in the goddamn air.

I convince him quite easily, obviously.
4 AM and in the arrivals terminal at Ben Gurion, a stranger landing from Budapest has to hitch a taxi home because I am holding his son captive.

A few nights afterwards, I sweep him home to my place. I was out earlier, with Little T., who handed me a see-through rock. We were doing lines in public bathrooms and plowing the city with jittery teeth.

He is so sweet, so simple, so pure. Much like the rock I slid into my Cover Girl compact. I don’t use foundation or powders, so it only seemed natural to dump out the original contents of the package and turn it into an easy, breezy parcel for the occasional lump, bud, rock, stamp, powder or pill. Inside I glued a picture from Coney Island, circa 1949. Post-war optimism. The New Look. Coiffed hairdos. A group of people is on an amusement ride of some kind. The women are throwing their hands upwards in exhilaration. Whee! What a fitting image for all that this compact has been through. On the other side, there is the mirror that came with it, adhered to the interior. $2.89 at Rite-Aid, somewhere in Maryland. Cheap thrills.

I am driving in a progressive state of lockjaw. I pick him up even though I suppose I shouldn’t even be driving. We are seated on my bed, and I dig out the compact from my purse.

No one ever says, hey baby, I’m bored and you seem sweet, wanna get lost?

Instead I crush the rock with my Wells Fargo card and offer him a neat line. It’s a little bit like in elementary school, where there are those kids who will go along with nearly anything you pitch them. It’s how we convinced Arthur to accompany us through the woods to the Hook Graveyard in fifth grade, even though he was an only child and was to be grounded for life.

It's how Nash and I always played hooky in summer camp and pocketed silver nail polish and went to smoke in the woods, and Molly was the tag-along. Elaborate plans require scapegoats. People will do almost anything to be accepted. I feel kinda bad thinking all of this about him, but no one makes choices for you. It all boils down to what kind of person you are.

He is nervous and excited, in this adorable way.

What’s it like? He asks. I mean, what does it do to you?

Not a fucking thing, it's what you do to you.

I give a quick presentation on the difference between uppers and downers. In case anything screws up too badly, I am armed with Diazepam, to knock us out for a bit. I shouldn’t be here doing lines with the classical clarinet player, I should be trying to land a new job. I am too smart to wait tables, indicates common Ashkenazi logic. I shouldn’t be out corrupting innocents, I should get my ass back to University and hurry the bloody fuck up with getting a real degree.

I shouldn’t be here with someone who I can already tell is pretty much infatuated with me, when I can’t feel anything for them. I am haunted by thoughts that have nothing to do with me. I am thinking of a difference in class, in upbringing, in our histories. How different we are, how I was raised by bigots and elitists to believe that I am much better than he is. How different we are, and yet here we are doing the exact same thing.

It’s my fault, I know.
We stay up for two days, talking. We only leave the bed for the occasional trip to the washroom, to splash our faces with water, or to the kitchen, to bring some tea. A big pot of tea reminds me of Husky Eyes and Berlin and talking to Claudi until I fell asleep.

He can’t stop talking; he is on the upper wave. He weaves his entire family history spanning four generations back, and this is the most fascinating stuff I’ve ever heard. World Wars, the Holocaust, gypsies, affairs, alcoholism, deception and trickery, insanity and uprooting. It’s like an Amir Kostariza movie, and I tell him I think he should write it all down.

It saddens me to think that he comes from all this. But the most interesting stories are usually the painful ones. Eventually we are coming down, and we fuck. It’s the first time I drag him past the hurdle that always seemed to exist there, Shiri. He emerges with his back marked almost entirely by my nails, little pink half-moons turning dark red as the minutes drag on. I had clawed at him. When it was all over, he was panting so hard it sounded almost like muffled weeping.

Afterwards, he finally crumpled into sleep, but my body was still reeling from the lines. Try as I did I couldn’t fall asleep. My hear rate was shot. I could hear the pulsating beats inside my head, right above my eyes. I tossed and turned and tried to find things to think about in order to avoid thinking of other things.

I am thinking of how Husky Eyes bought a ticket to Israel and how he will be here in a month. I’m thinking of what misconceptions he probably has regarding me and what went on between us. I am thinking of the clarinet player sleeping next to me, in love and unaware. I am thinking of how my grandmother is in the hospital and the doctors can’t seem to pinpoint what’s wrong. I am thinking of how I don’t have cash for gas or parking at the hospital, and how she must feel like she is rotting away and no one gives a shit. No one is coming to visit, and I am a shitty grandchild. I am thinking of how I just got fired, so any thought of leaving my second job at Café Hell is now moot. The things we do for money.

I am also thinking of R. and how I pretty much disappeared on him. Not that I owe him any explanations, really. It’s just that he was so kind to me and withstood a massive amount of unnecessary bullshit on my part. And more than that, worst than that, I miss him, even if only in the most physical of ways.

I never know what I want. And I didn’t know that there was so much to take that I didn’t, until I tried to take the same things from The Clarinet Player, only to encounter a naïve wall of resistance.

Going for the Gold

We have a second date tonight, if this is how it's to be labeled. I hate labels...And our first so-called date was rather impromptou and accidental, anyhow.

Because all I did was sit at home and from out of nowhere he picked me up. It's not like it was scheduled. I never penciled in anything. The Shesek...Oh, why do I do this to myself? He paid. What the fuck does that say? Imported beer.

You all know that moment when you know something is about to happen between you and They. It's not up to definition, really. I just knew when he took my hand and said he is fascinated by my fingers. I am always told I have beautiful hands, I know, I get offers to do hand modeling(previously I had always assumed that this occupation didn't really exist). So fucking what, right?


"I could stretch beyond an octave," was all I could really say, because I'm not good when it comes to accepting compliments.

Just smile and say thank you, dumbass.

The Sweatshop had ruined my once-perfect nails. I feel disfigured but he seems to see things through the Photoshop filter reserved for non-obsessive males.

Oh, to be like him.
I can't.

Anyway, I know that there may be a slight chance that this evening will end up with me straddling him. I just feel it, you know. I remind myself to be a good girl, and that I am often paranoid, so maybe I am just imagining this.

But I wanted to jump his bones when I was seventeen, I can't help it.

Why are we here, really? We've been friends for some years, via the on and off route. But I don't think we've gone out for a drink together since the last century.

I don't pull back my hand.Instead, I am wondering when they'll kick us out of here.
They finally do, at around 6:30 AM.

We float out into the sunshine.

"I don't feel like going home," he says.

"Neither do I."

"You..."

"Well, I hope you're not thinking of going to an after, because I'm positively wrecked."
I know it's coming, but it's so me to fuck with his mind a little.

"No, I was thinking of something a little less grand," he finally says.

I really hope he's not about to suggest something disgustingly shmaltzy such as going for a walk on the beach. I hate the sand and I'm wearing really nice shoes.

The kiss goes off like a firing squad. I've had really fantasic lays in my ten months of renewed singledom, but no one has kissed me like that.

You're imagining, I tell myself, but it keeps getting clearer and clearer.

I see Shiri's face, inhaling a Marlboro 100 and telling me what a killer fuck he is. We were fifteen, maybe. What the fuck did we know.

She had woken up from a dream screaming that she loves him. They'd never met before.
Life is so...Fuck it.

I feel a little weird, because two blocks down there's a guy who's been waiting the entire week, looking forward to our usual encounter. There's another guy in Germany who's bought a goddamn ticket to come visit me here in a month's time.

And here I am, in all my indecisive glory.
Why is everything such a big fucking deal?

Shiri used to cheat on him and then call me hyperventilating to tell me all about it. God, we were terrible. I can't remove it from my mind.

I need to quit feeling so fucking responsible for everyone else.

We are now parked outside my place, and the sun is shining on us through the windshield. He wants me to come over tonight, but I never know what I want. I prefer my comfortable place on the fence. I do know that I don't want to leave the car just yet. I have that oh dear god I want to just sit on you sensation sweeping through me.

But there might be consequences. Like finding yourself in a relationship, for example.

I undo my safety belt, shift a little, and reposition myself on him, on the driver's seat. Frankly, I'm too aroused to let him go home, but having sex in a car is just too Degrassi for me.
Oh, the humanity.

"Why don't you come to rehearsal?"

"Because I'm not in a band," I smile. I've done this whole girlfriend-of thing too many times. Another goddamn musician. I need a cure.

"Then why don't you come over to my place tomorrow?" he says.

"Because it's morning. Tomorrow is actually today."

"Good, then come today."

"We'll see."

Of course, I never called.

Tonight is a door off its hinges. I see it slamming back and forth against the frames.
Volatile winds and mood swings. Candies tasting of pheromones.
He's picking me up at ten.

Minimal Music, Maximum Drugging

I am still very much in shell shock just from being away from the Levant and its unbearable heat and lack of manners. Nearly 24 hours have passed, and not one hungry stare of an ape-like man tossed my way, not a single hiss or paralyzing catcall. The people here seem to fear initiating direct eye contact of the flirtaatious variety, and I am having a lot of fun with this. I have enough sexual aggression thrown at me back home. Here, I am the mistress of my own gender role playground. Leaving the spoils of our consumer outing at Lori's place, we head for Warschauer Straße to meet Frederic in order to go to the party at the Panoramabar. He's informed me that he is also bringing along a "ladyfriend", and through our brief but intense acquaintence, I can only imagine what kind of naughty ideas he's entertaining.


Killing time until Frederic's estimated time of arrival, Lori leads me to a pizza place near the station, where sometimes reggae parties are held unerground, past some sort of cartoonish passage. No reggae party here tonight, but we do make a brief dash to an EBM night across the street, where I spot many a fashion faux pas I find quite upsetting. To make matters worse, it starts raining, and I am wearing flip flops, since everyone had informed me that this was the most hellish summer Europe has seen in over 50 years.

Thank you, global warming. Fuck you, global warming.

Not much seems warm about tonight as I am freezing like a puppy soaked to the bone, wading through Berlin's puddles in frail summer footwear. We seek refuge in a Lebanese pizzaria, where the employees are nervously watching a live news broadcast on the escalating situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border. I try to appear disinterested, but I am carefully absorbing evry word and thinking of my brother. My grandmother must be heartbroken. She has to live through yet another war, her eldest grandson drafted for reserve duty in quicksand territory we'd supposedly abandoned long ago, and her granddaughter fleeing to the one country she'd vowed she'd never set foot in again. Until my grandfather passed away, not even Kinder chocolates were allowed in their home.

My American accent and New England mannerisms come to my rescue every time. I guess it isn't really a lie when the Lebanese clerk asks me where I'm from and I carelessly reply "D.C.". I'm not really from anywhere. I don't entertain those fantasies anymore.

"You American girls are so beautiful," he tells me.

I make a mental note to pass on the compliment to all the Alisons, Jessicas and Ashleys of the New World. Meanwhile, I indulge in Hawaiin pizza, trying to ignore the familiar names spewed out from the television set. They are bitig their nails to the quick, staring at the newscastor with anxiety. We are mixing MDMA into our bottled water in preparation for tonight.

Talk about escapism.

We down it on the train, trying to put on a brave front while battling the horrid metallic aftertaste. Thank goodness some of the Cinnaburst gum Roy sent me had made it with me to Berlin, otherwise my face would have been permanently screwed into that awful expression I take on after gulping a shot of cheap tequila.


We wait for Frederic at the station, and he punctually arrives with his friend, Katja. She looks barely 15 and a bit too fragile for anything remotely resembling Frederic's lifestyle of choice, but is nice and friendly enough. We hitch a taxi to the Panorama, a mega techno palace.

At the entrance, we are thoroughlyseached and patted down by some massive Brunhilda-esque amazona, before we are granted permission to proceed. The Panorama is usually home to massive gay parties on most nights, and a general Soddom & Gomorra vibe is quite apparent. I feel good about this, though. This means most of the sleaze tonight will not be directed at us ladies but rather at the bare-chested male populace who makes up roughly 80% of the club.

The place is huge, decorated in a stren and precise manner, and is packed with hot, toned male bodies writhing against each other. Normally I would feel a little out of place in such a merry orgy scene not geared towards my uterus and other anatomical favorites, but I'm just smiling like an idiot and looking on. The MDMA is starting to kick in, and I feel those floaty tingles normally associated with the ultimate love potion. Frederic finds us again and invites us upstairs to take some E, which he passes to me with a kiss, then proceeds to do the same for Lorca. I hope she isn't too taken aback by him, because it is quite obvious to me that by the end of the night he will probably invite her to take part in a threesome with us. Right now I am too focused on the fuzzy vibrations to stop and ponder if this is cheeky behavior on his part.

The music is very minimal techno. I can't dance to this shit, but I can certainly lean back and enjoy the chemical reactions battling like a pillow fight in my brain. I spill the beans to Lori about my wild night with my new friend, and she declares me a slag. Clearly, one of the signs of the coming apocalypse, along with Paris Hilton vowing to go celibate for an entire year. The MD seems to be doing the trick, as I find myself almost uncontainably happy and stroking the ledge of the sofa. Lori rises and throws up in the most elegant way I have ever seen, but says she feels much better now.

My body temperature is going schizo on me, and every few minutes there is a decision to either disrobe or pack on the layers once more. We are briefly pestered by a loud British fellow, clearly hopped up on something, and painfully unaware of the dominant sexual orientation in this particular club. We escape and take an enchanted tour of the premises, complete with cells for sex.

Fuck-cages.

No wonder cameras are not allowed in here, not that it mattered to yours truly. The place looks like what a Village People video might haved looked, had they been immensely popular in the early 90's and heavily into BDSM.

As the sun rises, Frederic and Katja meet us in the downstairs lobby, and we split a cab home. Surely enough, Frederic had indeed pitched the threesome idea to Lori, who politely declined the invitation but congratulated him on having the balls to ask.

He and I go home, where he draws a hot bath for us. Aside from the obvious hygenics routine, there is also the fucking, very far from standard "vanilla sex". For his age, the fellow certainly has stamina.

We later stage a "Six Feet Under" marathon. I find it amusing just how annoyed Frederic gets with Brenda's promiscuous behavior on the show.

"So what is it that peeves you so much about Brenda," I ask as she fucks yet another stranger behind Nate's back. "The sex or the dishonesty?"

Frederic explains to me that he himself has a steady girlfriend, but he told her about my being a special guest in his home. "The bitch's dishonesty, of course," he smiles.

Of course.

We both cheer on Claire as she stumbles to find her own identity, and eventually drift off to sleep.

Of Flatmates and Things

At home, Frederic takes care of the cooking while I take care of personal hygeine and indulge in a revitalizing shower, surrounded by R2D2 and friends. Contrary to the bitter European experiences of my past, there is a generous flow of hot water. This also sits well with the general urban decadence of the flat and the beautiful complex it is nestled in.

We eat in the living room, staging an indoor picnic on the wooden floor. Through the two huge windows I can see the sun setting. The wine turns out to be an excellent choice, and I am reasonably buzzed by the time we crack open the second bottle. Frederic tells me about the times he has visited Tel-Aviv in order to play parties there, since he is quite an esteemed DJ. I actually recall a party he played at HaTzofeh(RIP), which was indeed a hell of a time.

We relax on the sofa, and I eventually succumb to a little nap, to be awakened by a very generous act being performed on me, the kind some would say "separates the boys from the men". The kind of act where I reckon it is hard to not wake up catching your breath as a result, so long as it is done right.

We end up having extremely kinky sex on the living room floor. What the fellow lacks in girth, he more than compensates fro with creativity. I suppose it is a good thing he landed a liberated houseguest such as myself, considering he is very much into dirty talk.

I actually had plans to attenda party at Ben's, who I favorably remember as the bringer of Jagermeister from the Various Aquarious party last winter, but I am literally too fucked to even consider going.

Frederic and I go for another round and then retire to sleep. I can't help but wonder what my Homeland Subby would think about all this, but I am quick to remind myself that we never discussed exclusivity(I certainly don't crave it at this point in time) and besides, fuck it, I'm on vacation.

I have come to Berlin with the intent of drinking their beer, eating their baked goods, and fucking some meshuggeneh goyim. It's simply that simple, so I try to live by it.

Frederic is like the very negative of any scenario I had under my belt at home, anyhow. Suddenly I am on the receiving end of orders and requests. Come morning, I am treated to a hearty German breakfast consisting of toast, eggs, ham, butter and a tray of cheeses. I'm more of a fruit and granola gal when it comes to the first meal of the day, but being a practical person on a limited budget, I dig in, hoping that this will aid me in avoiding a food-related financial splurge later in the day. Protein is protein, after all.

After the most important meal of the day has been consumed and done away with, I soon find myself in a spread-eagle position usually reserved for Dr. Rosenberg's exam table, balancing myself on a wooden beam in Frederic's kitchen. Nothing like a healthy serving of morning sex, or as Gabi's dad once colorfully illustrated, it's like a nooner, only sooner.

After a post-coital nicotine break, Frederic accompanies me to the tram station, and escorts me to Ostkreuz to meet Lori. Lori has been renting a gallery bed in the kitchen of two German students on Lenbachstrasse, Noam's street. Aside from finding herself in a conveniant spot, she also found Ehud Eighties living in a van beneath her newly adopted apartment building. Ehud has by now fully embraced the technival culture, following his life-altering experiences at Czech-Tek.

Fredric, Lori and I sit down for coffee at a cafe on Sonntagstrasse, and eventually we girls bid him farewell, making plans to hit a techno party later that evening. Because of his DJ status in these parts, free entry is guaranteed, as well as - or at least, as that practical side of me hopes - free drugs. Lori invites me to see her gallery bed before we move on to do what women are gentically programmed to excell at - shopping. I am relieved to find that her roommates are not the cannibalizing fiends I'd pictured them to be, although to be fair, I only met one of the two.