Rebecca returned to the couch, crossed her legs and pulled some papers out of her bag. Owen looked at her for a minute before grabbing Hannah’s arm and pulling her to the back of the studio. The silver stud in the cleft of his chin flashed at her, and the small ring around the right corner of his bottom lip moved slightly as he breathed heavily in frustration. She concentrated on his chest, the muscles a suggestion pushing through the soft cotton of his old Misfits t-shirt.“Are you okay?”
“I’m—I’m fine.” This was so obvious a lie that there seemed no point in adding to it.
“Are you going to talk to her?”
“I guess.”
She shrugged and then reached up to massage her temples where a harp new headache had taken up residence. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to.”
She looked away and thought about what Rebecca had said: ‘several counts of child and sexual molestation.’ Several counts. Jesus. Owen was watching her, and exhaled when she caught his eye. He looked worried for her.
“It’s slow now. Go eat lunch with her, find out what she wants and come back in time for the rush.”
“I can’t you leave alone here. As soon as I’m gone five people will come in.”
“I’ll call Blade.” Their least favorite coworker was always asking for more hours.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Hannah considered protesting more, but then nodded.
“Fine.”
She went to the back room to clock out and pick up her old messenger bag and cellphone. Automatically she glanced in the mirror to see how she looked, smoothing out her black tank top and the cherry red short skirt she had chosen too quickly while Owen told her again to hurry up, that their boss would be pissed if they opened late. Her hair at least looked good, cut short and dyed peacock blue for the past year. At first she had been secretly scandalized by it, momentarily shocked every time she caught a wisp of her reflection in a store window or on the closed circuit camera that broadcast everything that happened in the studio. But she had finally acclimated, and now anticipated the loud statement her hair made to the world.
When she came back out to the studio, she stood next to Owen for a minute while he moved things around on a shelf. He tucked some of her hair behind her ear and the gesture was sweet. Still, she felt a kind of hollowness she wasn’t used to. For a moment she gripped a few of his fingers with her own, searching his face for something that would save her from whatever conversation she would have to have with Rebecca.
“Pretend you have amnesia?” he offered.
“I don’t think she’d buy it.” But Hannah cracked a smile.
“I can write you a doctor’s note?” He was smiling, but looked sad.
“’Dear Ms. Janssen, Hannah can’t talk to you about her past because it would cause adverse effects to her piercings?’” Hannah grinned despite herself.
“That would be a pretty great way to respond.” She sighed then, allowing her expression to become blank again, and let go of his fingers.
In the waiting area Rebecca was bent over her work, thumbing a message into a sleek Blackberry.
“It turns out I have some time now,” Hannah said awkwardly. “So…”
“Oh, wonderful.” Rebecca sounded surprised, but she put her things together quickly and stood up, looking very businesslike.They walked out the front door and into the August sunlight. Across the street Norman was opening up his used bookstore, and one of the waitresses from Clarke’s walked by and waved at Hannah. She waved back weakly, and looked at Rebecca.
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
Jewrotica is a great way to ask interesting questions about the interplay between sensuality and Jewish wisdom. Check it out.
Learning about sex and what’s right and wrong when it comes to sex from a Biblical standpoint was an eye opening experience. I completely enjoyed it and think something like this could be a very cool thing to bring to even high school aged Jewish youth groups.
Jewrotica was everything I had dreamed of and more: sexy attendees, tantalizing confessions, and well-written literature to boot! More importantly, it empowers us Jews to reach inside and own our sexy selves and heritage!
I’m into Jewrotica. I went in for my second circumcision.
Bedside Reading with Jewrotica was funny, sexy, and hot all at once. The readings were honest about all kinds of sexuality, but the highlight of the evening was definitely the confessions, written by audience participants. Nobody knew who wrote them, and most were tell-alls that would make your bubbe blush. Unless your bubbe was very, very cool. Then maybe she’d make YOU blush!
Such an amazing experience! The Sarah Lawrence Jewrotica workshop was more than I could have ever expected – a comfortable, safe, sultry environment where participants clearly felt good about sharing or listening to each other’s intimate experiences and relating them to sexy stories from the Torah. From the moment the workshop began, Ayo had a sweet presence that was kinetic and spread around the room; her storytelling abilities had everyone enraptured and made the conversation topics relata… Read more
I’m Heshy Fried from Frum Satire and I am very, very frum. And I completely support Jewrotica – it’s doing a service to the frum community. We need some sort of kosher sexual education. Jewrotica even has a system that allows frum filters to filter out certain things to make it PG for us. It’s mamish Torah. It’s like The Little Midrash Says for sex.
I’m so glad that Jewrotica is represented here at Jewlicious! It’s bringing voices that need to be heard in the Jewish discussion and Jewish climate environment.
The people behind Jewrotica are quite quality! I have confidence that any project these folks take on will be equally quality.
The Jewrotica event “Evening of Jewrotica: Bedside Reading” was awesome. As Master of Confessions, I got to read the deepest, darkest secrets of people in the room out loud… It was scintillating, titillating, and – yes – even educational!
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