Authors: Jayde Blumenthal
Raizy
For Raizy, that first date was just surreal.
Her parents had made her promise she wouldn’t say or do anything inappropriate, and she had blushed. She was a good girl, of course, and it wasn’t her fault that she was just a little too worldly. A little too widely read.
The
shadchan
admitted that she’d hesitated to suggest Beryl. She was about to mention somebody from another yeshiva, somebody a little more modern. But Raizy wanted a Torah scholar, her mother had insisted.
Raizy agreed, of course.
Despite all the hours she’d spent in the library, reading more than she should have, she still believed in the value of a Torah life.
Which didn’t stop her from glancing at his pants
, there in the restaurant, as he excused himself to go wash when their food finally arrived.
“I’ll be right back,” he mumbled.
“Of course,” she said.
Nice ass
, she thought, and then mentally slapped herself.
It was the kind of thought the bad girls would have, the ones who, despite
their years in Bais Yaakov, managed to find themselves pregnant in high school by the kinds of boys they weren’t even supposed to be speaking to, let alone being friendly with. Let alone – doing it with.
He’d asked her how many of her friends were married… but not about the one who’d gotten knocked up without benefit of marriage. Only once during the time she’d gone to the school.
Compared to that, her parents probably figured reading a few secular books here and there was the least of all the evils Raizy could have exposed herself to. And every single parent and teacher seemed to believe firmly in the virtues of marrying and settling down. They said it in one breath, just like that.
“Marrying-and-settling-down.”
The vice-principal stood up to explain how it happened: the girl, a year older than Raizy, had met the boy online. At first, he pretended to be a
frum
teenage boy, and only gradually did it turn out that he was not only not
frum
, he wasn’t even Jewish. He just liked Jewish girls.
These predators saw the girls
and their innocence as a challenge, the vice-principal had told them. The principal hadn’t been the one to talk to them: he was a man, and such a talk from him would have been inappropriate. But from a woman, well, if it prevented future tragedies, it was probably worth it.
Raizy thought she was probably the only one in the room wishing
the same thing would happen to her. Or at least something. Some kind of adventure between the legs.
That some boy would see her innocence, that pristine space between her
thighs, concealed behind heavy skirts, beneath opaque stockings, above shoes as clunky as her 80-year-old grandmother wore and beneath a blouse designed to lie as flat as possible over her chest, as a challenge.
As something delicious
: a sweet, creamy chocolate filling lying within a salty, spicy éclair.
After
the vice-principal talked to them, Raizy had often pictured herself as that éclair, perhaps – for an extra challenge – place on top of a mountain, so that the boy, like some fairy tale prince charming, had to clamber to the heights to attain her as his reward.
Lying her flat atop the mountain. Spreading her legs wide. Licking out that creamy chocolate filling.
She tried to force herself to stop thinking about it. To think thoughts of Torah. But she hadn’t been able to, then or now on this date with Beryl, here in the restaurant.
“I’d like to marry a scholar,” she said
, probably for the fifth time, her voice sounding like a hollow echo.
“Well, I’m definitely planning to sit and learn,” he told her.
Again. If this was Hollywood, their dialogue would be on the cutting room floor by now, the writer in Raizy sniped.
“How’s your soup?” she asked, picking at her own salad. Don’t think about it, she told herself. Think about the soup.
“It’s great. I think I’ll go wash now,” he said.
And that’s when he mumbled that he’d be right back.
Don’t get up,
she’d messaged him, telepathically. If he got up, she might not be able to control herself. If he got up, she might wrap herself around him right there in the restaurant. Raizy could feel the same wetness and heat starting between her legs. Don’t get up.
He got up.
Nice ass. Nice shoulders. She couldn’t see his package, but with a dirty mind like his, it was just as well.
Throughout the awkward conversation, she’d been watc
hing his lips instead of listening to his words. And there was something about his lips, she had to admit.
A twitch that almost looked like the start of a smile. A ge
ntle pout, a rounded fullness that made her think maybe she’d better hitch her wagon to his steed before her wild thoughts ran away with her altogether.
Watching
the back of his pants, his ass, as he walked away, she felt her éclair swelling, and she desperately hoped that Beryl might be the Prince Charming to scale that mountain and claim her, licking out as much as possible of her creamy filling for his prize.
Raizy
None of which her parents suspected when they told her how much they approved of Beryl.
“He’s so perfect!” her mother cooed.
“He seems like a very nice boy,” said her father. “I heard him give over a dvar Torah on Shabbos, and he seems very serious.”
“So handsome, too,” her mother said.
“For a yeshiva
bochur
,” said Raizy.
“Handsome doesn’t come in shades,” said her mother.
“Okay, he looks good,” she admitted, playing it cool.
It was easy enough to play it cool. Despite her strong fee
lings during their dates, he was still far short of the physical ideal that she imagined was only attainable by goyim. He was pale and thin, which a lifetime of learning Torah indoors could do to you.
Sure, he’d told her the boys got outside to play basketball a few times a week. A ballgame every couple of days does not an athlete make.
But there was a nice breadth to his chest that some of the other boys didn’t have. His shoulders looked wide and strong. And that curve to his lips.
Her older brother said he’d danced with Beryl at a wedding a while ago and he’d taken one of the chair legs that supported the
chassan
, the groom, lifting him up along with three boys on the other legs.
He hadn’t dropped the
chassan
.
How crazy was it that her brother had danced with Beryl,
who she’d marry soon, and she hadn’t even touched him yet?
Her brother had put his hands on this man’s shoulders
? Linked arms, held hands, maybe even touched him at his waist or on his ass. They all
shtipped
each other that way when they danced, in shul, and around the yeshiva, her brothers had said.
A
nd she wouldn’t be able to even touch his baby finger for three more months, until their wedding date.
Still,
baruch Hashem
, it was only three months away.
“So when did you have your period?” her mother asked when it came time to set the date.
“What?” Raizy had asked, startled. She was sure her face had just turned bright red.
“Your period,” her mother said, pulling
a crinkly plastic package out of her apron pocket. “Your cycle.”
“I guess
… it ended a week ago,” said Raizy. Was she really even talking about this with her mother.
“Well, good.” Her mother paused for a minute, as if calc
ulating. “So if you start taking these now, then we’ll be able to get your cycle lined up.”
“Lined up?”
She saw now that the package was pills. Birth control pills.
“All the girls take them,” her mother said. “
So we can set your wedding date. And be certain that you won’t be a
niddah
when the date comes.”
Raizy blushed.
God forbid. To be a
niddah
on her wedding night.
The ultimate disgrace for a bride was to
get her period too close to her wedding date. For two weeks after her period ended, she and her husband wouldn’t even be allowed to touch each other. Hand each other plates, glasses. Unwrap presents together. Share the same piece of cake.
Let alone to climb into the same bed, to do… it.
She couldn’t imagine the shame.
So that’s what the pills did, lined up your cycle so you wouldn’t have to suffer that fate on your wedding night.
Thinking about the wedding night and all it entailed in her mother’s presence was simply too much. The familiar pulsing between her legs returned, and she blushed again.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “So I take these every day?”
“That’s right,” said her mother. “The days of the week are written on the package. Just take each one on the right day.”
“Okay,” Raizy said again.
“Remember to pop out the one for Shabbos on Thursday night, so you don’t have to do it on Shabbos.” Of course. It was not a sin to artificially align your periods with chemicals, but it was to tear a wrapper with writing on it on the holy Sabbath day.
There was nothing else to say.
How could she even think about
why
she was doing all of this, here in the same room as her mother?
“After the third package, you’ll stop,” her mother went on. “You’ll get your period, and then go to the
mikveh
.”
The
mikveh
.
Yet another humiliation. Stripping naked and then dun
king in the holy water with only an older woman watching, her mother in another room waiting for her to come out.
Raizy didn’t know all the details, and as if her mother had read her mind, she spoke again.
“You’ll be learning with Rebbitzen Schwartz. Starting next week.
Kallah
classes!” her mother said brightly.
Raizy already knew from other girls that the lessons were
deathly boring. All-the-way-to-tears boring. You’d think they’d be exciting, given what they were preparing the girls for. But the rebbitzen apparently managed to string God and holiness and blessed Jewish children into every conversation until it killed any passion that might be left in the girls.
“Fine,” said Raizy. She needed to say something else, to play the good girl that everyone imagined her to be. “Thank you.”
“I just can’t believe how grown up you are,” said her mother, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you’re getting married already.”
Neither could Raizy. This was the start of the rest of her life. She should be taking it seriously? So why couldn’t she get her mind out of the gutter? Why couldn’t she think of Beryl’s mind, his Torah learning, the family they would surely have together? She wished she could
force her mind to think past the yichud room, past that first night of their marriage.
On the other hand, what was there to look forward to, past that first night? He’d get up, go to shul, then to yeshiva. Sit and learn all day and she’d shvitz under fluorescent lights in a classroom somewhere, yelling at a bunch of girls and tugging her wig a few times each class to make sure it stayed straight.
Tugging at her stockings a few times each class to make sure she appeared as virtuous as possible in front of her impressionable classes of young girls. Trying not to daydream in the classroom about stories she longed to write.
Why should she think past the wedding night?
After her mother went out, Raizy listened as the house quieted down for the night. Her parents said goodnight to each other, light switches snapped off, upstairs and down.
W
hen the house was perfectly still, Raizy switched off her own bedside lamp, pulled the sheet up to her neck, and reached beneath it with both hands.
With one
hand, she spread apart those damp lips she had only just discovered a few months before. She thrust that hand deep, deep inside, simulating a tongue, flicking inside and out. And with the other, she brought herself to the edge of pleasure… and then, with a gasp, she dived over to the other side.
Beryl
On the other side of town, Beryl’s hands were also under the covers.
Pull them out, he told himself. Before it’s too late.
It was already too late. He tried thinking about God, watching over him, who’d surely be disappointed. But what kind of God would create him with these unholy desires?
He knew he wasn’t the only one who did this, under the sheets.
At night, sometimes, he could hear the beds creaking. Once, there had even been a boy who left his bed, to get in with another boy. They were both removed pretty quickly once the teachers caught on. But that, that was unnatural. This – a boy thinking about a girl – how unnatural could this be?
Just one touch. Just one stroke.
He gave himself a squeeze and shuddered. It would be so easy to finish things off here. He thought about Raizy. Even though that definitely didn’t help.
Another squeeze, a tug. It was all he could do to stop hi
mself from groaning out loud. A few times, before, he’d stuffed sheets in his mouth so he wouldn’t shout out as he came.
Three months. Surely, even a pervert like him could wait three months.
Soon, he’d be going to the holy rabbi for his
chassan
classes, the course designed to turn him from a gawky schoolboy into a manly bridegroom, prepared to conquer his quivering bride on their wedding night.
Preparing him t
o stand beside her beneath the
chuppah
. It was a good thing every
chassan
wore a long, white robe over his clothes; another layer of discreet protection in case he should become hard.
How likely was that
, though? Before the wedding, they’d both be weak from fasting all day, and deathly nervous and afraid, with practically everybody they knew – their bubbies and zeidies – watching on from front row seats.
Nobody
could think about fucking at a time like that. Could they?
He tried to picture it now, to calm himself, to reinstill the fear of the Lord. But first, he’d have to pull his hand out of his pajama bottoms,
a feat that was proving hellishly hard to do. Why did it feel even more difficult to wait now that the wedding date was set?
Beryl tried not to think about how the wedding date had been
chosen. Raizy’s mother must have asked her about her monthly bleeding. That much he knew from things the boys whispered. His future mother-in-law must have talked to his
kallah
and set things up – he wasn’t exactly sure how – so that she wouldn’t be bleeding three months from now when they stood side by side beneath the
chuppah
.
He knew his member wasn’t allowed to touch her blood down there. Ever. This was a sin punishable by
kareis
, being cut off from his people. Plus, any children they conceived while she was bleeding would be cursed with impurities he couldn’t possibly imagine.
And yet, the thought of that blood, slippery and warm… it didn’t revolt him the way it was supposed to. Just like he wasn’t supposed to eat bacon, but couldn’t help taking a long, deep
whiff of its smokey smell when he walked past the diners that served it. His mind returned to the thought of her blood, wet, slick, earthy-smelling and slightly rank, like the tampon of one of his sisters’ friends that he’d fished out of the trash one time.
Raizy.
He thought of how put-together she’d looked, each time he’d seen her. He couldn’t imagine what she might smell like, down there. He couldn’t imagine anything coming out of her… blood, or that slippery sap he’d read about, her own juices, that he hoped would make penetrating her easy and smooth and not, God forbid, painful.
Penetrating
? Really? His thoughts
had
to go there? His cock jumped to alertness once again, and with a sigh, he gave himself over to it, squeezing himself harder and rubbing a little with his warm flannel pajama bottoms.
“Beryl?” Crap. It was Yossel. “Are you still awake?”
“Not really,” he said, in what he hoped sounded like a sleepy mumble.
“Are you excited about the wedding?”
“Sure,” Beryl said.
“Do you think I’ll be next?”
Yossel had been out on a few dates, but kept messing it up, acting too forward with the girls, asking too many questions for a first date. Sometimes, overcompensating, he was too quiet.
Beryl had
heard through his mother that one of the girls had reported that sitting in the restaurant with Yossel would have been more lively if it had been just her, talking to an empty chair.
“Could be, Yossel, it could be.”
“How will I know what to
do
,” Yossel asked. “You know, when the time comes?”
“You’ll know,” Beryl said.
“I heard that some guys don’t, and they mess it up, even hurt the girl.”
“The rebbe sits down with you, teaches you what to do, what to say to relax the girl.”
“It’s not her I’m worried about,” Yossel said.
“Well, you don’t want to be too relaxed, right? Afterwards, you can relax.”
“You sound so calm,” said Yossel.
“Sure,” said Beryl. “
Nothing to panic about. It’s very natural.”
If only Yossel knew.
“Wow,” said Yossel. “I hope I can be as calm as you – when my time comes.”
“You will be.”
“Okay, goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” said Beryl.
When Beryl had first come to yeshiva, it had been awkward, going to bed in the same room as the other boys, lying together, whispering to each other under the cover of darkness, falling asleep together.
Now, the awkwardness was gone, and despite the inconve
nience – his balls throbbed, but he knew that with Yossel lying awake nearby, he couldn’t beat off now – it just felt natural to have these other boys around him as he drifted off.
How could he possibly
ever get that comfortable… with a girl?