while, catching my breath and trying to decide whether I wanted things to begin again where we’d left off, or whether I wanted to get my clothes and leave.
I was still undecided when I heard the muffled sound of crying. I sat up. What’s the matter? I asked. Nothing, he said. But you’re crying. I was just thinking of something, he said. What? I asked. One day I’ll tell you. Tell me now, I started to say, moving closer to him, but didn’t get all of the words out, because then his mouth was on mine and I was pulled into a kiss soft and deep, as if he had reached in and performed some brisk emergency surgery with the most deft and delicate touch, causing something to surge and come alive, flooding me with vitality I had been deprived of. That night we had sex three or maybe four times. From then on, we were rarely apart.
When I was with Yoav, everything in me that had been sitting stood up. He had a way of looking at me with a kind of unabashed directness that made me shiver. It’s something amazing to feel that for the first time someone is seeing you as you really are, not as they wish you, or you wish yourself, to be. I’d had boyfriends before, and I was familiar with the little mating rituals of getting to know each other, of dragging out the stories from childhood, summer camp, and high school, the famous humiliations, and the adorable things you said as a child, the familial dramas—of drawing a portrait of yourself, all the while making yourself out to be a little brighter, a little more deep than deep down you knew you actually were. And though I hadn’t had more than three or four relationships, I already knew that each time the thrill of telling another the story of yourself wore off a little more, each time you threw yourself into it a little less, and grew more distrustful of an intimacy that always, in the end, failed to pass into true understanding.
But with Yoav it was different. He propped himself up on one arm and stared at me as I spoke, absently stroking my arm or leg, and interrupting me to ask questions—Who’s she, you never mentioned her before, OK, go on then, what happened next? And he remembered every last detail, and wanted to hear not just the highlights, but everything, not letting me skip over any parts. He clucked his tongue and his face clouded over with anger whenever I narrated a part about some cruelty or betrayal, and grinned with pride whenever I described a triumph. Sometimes the things I told him evoked a quiet, almost tender laugh. He made me feel like the entire story of my life had been lived for his audience alone. And he treated my body with the same attentiveness and wonder. He used to touch and kiss me with such seriousness—studying my face to gauge my reaction—that it made me laugh. Once, as a joke, he took out a notebook and after each caress jotted down a little note, speaking aloud as he wrote: Sucking the earlobe…semicolon…makes her…gasp. Then he would kiss and stroke me again, and take the notebook back up: Licking…the right…nipple while…letting hand…rove…over her…beautiful…butt…ocks…semicolon…A faraway…smile…spreads…across her…face. Another pause. Then: Putting…her toes…in mouth…semicolon…Makes the hair…on her arms…stand on…end and her…amazing thighs…squeeze together…Addendum…semicolon…A second time…makes…her…squeal…exclamation point. And yet the joke didn’t end there. One day I got to the library and found the notebook tucked in among my books, and every page had been covered with Yoav’s tiny writing.
His attention made me feel so clarified, so bright and exact, so moved, that I accepted, at least in the beginning, that while there was nothing that I wouldn’t tell him, there were things about his family that he seemed unable to talk about with me. He never said so directly; somehow he just always found a way to avoid answering.
I tried to learn him. I studied the beauty marks on his body, the shiny scar like a train track above his left nipple, the misshapen nail of his right thumb, the little field of golden hairs where his spine met the top of his backside. The surprising thinness of his wrists, the smell of his neck. The silver fillings in his mouth, the tiny capillaries at the top of his ears. I loved the way he spoke out of only one side