‘Why do you think that Barbra is the molester,’ Bornstein had repeatedly asked me, ‘if you call yourself the abuser?’
I did not have a fucking pat answer for why. The doctor was the one who was supposed to help me with that. I showed up every week for years and I did not feel any different. Now, seven years ended. Fuck, seven years: gone.
Bornstein, our sex games fed my sex addiction. Instinctive, collective.
No yes and no no.
I found myself bracing the door to the family room, arms out like twigs. Like Jesus, a failure.
Bornstein, I was the abuser because I was the one who acted out. The molester, right there, she only initiated me.
‘That is not the definition of molester,’ Bornstein coolly informed me. ‘Molestation is unwanted. It’s a priori wrong. Initiation is not what it means.’
Barbra sat crossed-legged and happy in the L-joint of the couch, somehow using the towel to cover her crotch. Ariane sat to her left, farthest from the peasant-bloused shyster.
‘This is my girlfriend, Ariane Chan,’ I announced from the top of the family room stairs.
‘I told them my name,’ snapped Ariane.
The shyster passed Barbra a freshly lit pipe. I watched Barbra wiggle with it over to Ariane.
‘You don’t look Jewish at all,’ Barbra said.
Ariane laughed. I thought, defaulting to coy. Barbra kept moving closer to my girlfriend, sidling right up beside her, smoke leaking out of her lips. I felt dizzy, revolted. It all seemed in slomo. The leaked smoke made a helix. Ariane opened her mouth. Barbra fed her the pipe. My throat shrank to the size of a tube.
I thought, abusers and molesters are supposed to be together.
Jezebel and Jew-boy ripping the system.
I remembered when Barbra said to me: I am ruining other girls for you for life.
Bornstein, this is the definition of molester: slick ruination raining all over me.
§
At our last Friday-night dinner before my mother left, Barbra looked strange. She wore a ruffled, white-stitched, kind of Victorian dress.
‘Looks great on you,’ said my mother, filling our goblets with wine.
Barbra screwed her hands together and stared at her plate.
‘We’re sending you two off in style,’ my father boomed. ‘Chicken from Dominion, just like my mother’s. I like a little schmaltz, me and Abbi like a little schmaltz. The kid’s gonna miss me. She likes the way I dress it up with schmaltz.’
God, I wished he would shut up. Even Abigail grimaced.
‘Well, kids, what do you say?’
My father handed Abigail the knife for the challah. My mother unpacked the side dishes of beets and potatoes. Barbra’s fingers interlaced like she was crushing something.
‘I will light the candles tonight,’ Barbra said, standing up. ‘For Ruth.’
‘Good, good. For Ruth? Fine. She needs matches.’
My father twisted around and reached into the drawer of the hutch. Barbra had told me that there was no such thing as racism in Ethiopia. Ethiopia, she said, had had no problem with Jews. My father pitched a pack of matches at Barbra. This was my mother’s and Abigail’s last night at home so we were eating in the dining room.
‘I’m not cooking, I’m not lifting a finger,’ my mom had said.
‘It was only in Israel,’ Barbra had told me, ‘where people were first ever racist to us. They called us names. They called me kushi. Israel was a disappointment,’ she’d said.