Dating Kosher (6 page)

“Shosh! It was so great to hear from you,” he said, as soon as I answered an hour or so later. I’m no rocket scientist but I could tell
this
guy was happy to hear from me.

I put the smile in my voice, trying not to sound as relieved as I felt that he’d called. “Great to hear your voice! What’s it been? A year? Eighteen months?”

“About that. Hey, why don’t we get together tonight? I’d love to see you.”

This was going to be easier than I thought. “Sounds great. How about at Starlight at nine?” I liked picking the rendezvous spot; being on comfortable turf was a good thing. And the lighting at the Starlight lounge, one of my favorite places in the world, was exceptional.

Perfect. I’m looking forward to eating you, whoops, I mean
meeting
you!”

We both laughed. His Freudian slip had been one-hundred percent intentional and as cheesy as it gets, but I loved it. It was like he’d never left. And, if memory served me, computers weren’t his only skill.

Chapter 9

Sitting in my favorite booth with a good view of the door, I sipped my martini, waiting for Phil. It was a well-rehearsed strategy to be early: that way, I had my choice of tables in my favorite waiter’s section. I had filled the waiter in on the evening’s requirements (long pours for him, short pours for me: I needed to stay alert) and was ready to go. Now I just needed the final ingredient: Phil.

On time as always, Phil arrived at one minute to nine, wearing a well-fitted suit and a great pair of shoes (never neglect to look at a man’s shoes: shoes tell you
everything
). Disappointing was what he hadn’t bought in a store: his thinning hair. Well, maybe he could get plugs or a shorter cut in time for the wedding, I thought. Either way, Phil Silver was a name
everyone
knew so hair or no hair, people would be impressed.

Getting up from the booth, I allowed the right corner of my mouth to turn up. I’d forgotten how short he was; in my stilettos, I was at least two inches taller than him.

“Shoshanna, oooh mama!” Phil put his hands on my hips and kissed me full on the lips. “You are looking good,” He said as he pulled back and motioned for me to sit.

“You’re looking good too, Phil,” I said. It didn’t matter that I was referring to his ensemble; no need to split hairs. Whoops, pardon the pun. “Love the shoes,” I added, not able to help it; the shoes
were
sublime.

“Dolce & Gabbana,” he said casually as he slid into the booth across from me, his eyes dipping to my cleavage.

I leaned forward to afford him a good look. “They’re stunning.”

“Oh yes they are,” he said, still staring at my chest. Then he looked up, chuckling as he did. “Oh wait, you meant the shoes? I got them at Caesar’s last time I was in Vegas. I just love Vegas. Ever been?” He was showboating, but that was okay. He was throwing around his money like I was throwing around my body. We’d make a good pair at the wedding.

I lifted my glass. “Yes, but you could still take me, show me around.”

He raised his eyebrows and stared at me a moment before flagging down the waiter who was waiting for his sign.

Within seconds of his signal, Phil had in front of him a shot The Macallan (never forget to call it
The
Macallan, Phil had always said) courtesy of my explicit pre-game instructions.

He smiled down at the glass as the waiter announced what it was. “You remembered. So, tell me, Shoshanna. How are you not married off yet?”

“No one can afford me,” I said with a one-shoulder shrug. Of all the boyfriends I’d ever had, Phil would take this joke with good humor. Maybe because he
could
afford me.

He chuckled. “Ah, you haven’t changed a bit. If it weren’t for the fact that there’s a scotch in front of me, I’d take you back to my place this instant.”

I lifted my martini, pausing right before I took a sip. “Drink up,” I said, with a wink and a smirk. Then I emptied my glass.

* * *

When we pulled into Phil’s driveway, I was impressed to say the least. His last place had been nice, something I could have seen myself in, but this, this, even by New York standards, was Impressive with a big capital I.

It was a condo, but in what looked like a very exclusive building that surely cost a fortune. I didn’t dare ask though I was dying to. A doorman handed me out of the car as we pulled up to the front portico and then greeted Phil as he took the keys. I didn’t see any parking garage but had no doubt the car would be whisked away until Phil needed it again.

Once inside Phil’s third floor (the
entire
floor) condo, I only had a second to register the décor; beautiful, luxurious and warm, no small feat considering the high vaulted ceilings and the marble floor. My mother would nod her endorsement of the place.

But I didn’t have much time to explore with my eyes because I wasn’t in the door five seconds before Phil was on me, his lips on my neck, his hands all over the rest of me. In the massive foyer, he then liberated my breasts, practically making a meal of them.

I’d forgotten what sex with Phil was like. By day, he was one-hundred percent business, icy cool, smart as a whip. By night, he was one-hundred percent no-holds-barred sex-starved maniac. I’m sure it was some sort of type A personality thing, but whatever—it was exciting. It had been a while since I’d had anything like that; having dealt recently with Max’s flaccid half-baked attempts to pleasure me that left me more angry than satisfied.

In my heated frenzy, I managed to speak, although it sounded like a croaky grunt to my own ears. “Let’s…go…bedroom…”

He lifted his face from my chest and looked into my eyes for half a second. Then he kissed me, hard, before leading me to his huge master suite.

To say that Phil rocked my world that night would be understating. He rocked my world three times. By the time we fell into a sweaty heap of flesh and various bodily fluids, it was almost four a.m. and although I prided myself on my cardiovascular fitness, I was beyond spent.

Phil propped himself up on an elbow and pushed a few sweaty locks of hair off my face. “You still got it, Shosh.”

I smiled, closing my eyes. I wasn’t ready to talk yet.

He traced his finger along my chest, around each breast. I hoped he wasn’t resting up to go again; I was never one to refuse great sex, but I’d had more than my…er…fill.

“So why’d you call me?” he asked, nuzzling his face into my breasts. I wondered if he hadn’t gotten enough breastfeeding when he was a baby.

Forcing the gears in my brain to start turning, I had to make a conscious effort to speak (yes, it had been
that
good). “I’d heard you were back in town. I wanted to see you. We had some awesome times, didn’t we?” I opened my eyes and lifted my head slightly. All I could see was the thinning hair on the top of his head.

“Yeah, we did.”

Closing my eyes to take the focus off his scalp, I thought about him and how good we were together. Forget just the wedding, maybe Phil was it. We had good chemistry; he was back in town, we certainly burned up the sheets. “Maybe now that you’re back, we should give it another go,” I suggested.

He continued running his fingers along my chest and across my belly, making me quiver. Maybe I
could
go again…

“Nah, I don’t think so,” he said after a long pause, still petting me so it took a second for me to catch up and realize what he’d said.

As soon as I did, my heart sank. “Why not?”

His fingers traveled down my belly. His voice was almost a whisper when he finally spoke. “Because, Shoshanna, you’re a vacuous whore.”

In that instant, my heart stopped beating. It took me a moment to figure out if I had heard him correctly. I wasn’t entirely sure what ‘vacuous’ meant, but I was very familiar with the definition of ‘whore.’

“What?” I asked, sitting up.

He looked up at me, still smiling like a smug fucking bastard. “You’re empty. You’re a gold-digger. I’ve got too much at stake to be mixed up with a girl like you.” He lifted his head, his eyes scanning the room. “Look at this place, I’m not willing to lose half of what I worked my ass off for to a spoiled princess.”

Spoiled princess—this again?
I bolted out of bed, eager to get away from him. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I stood staring at him, my hands on my hips, not caring that I was naked.

He smirked. His cavalier attitude was infuriating. “No, I’m not kidding.”

“You buy me drinks, fuck me senseless and then insult me by telling me I’m a whore and a gold-digger?” My heart pounded in my chest so hard, it hurt. I tasted blood in my mouth; I had bit the inside of my cheek. Never before had I seen red like this.

He rolled over and got off the bed, reaching down for the boxer shorts that had been discarded so hastily before. “Shoshanna,
you
called
me
, remember? I didn’t ask for anything. This is exactly what I’m talking about. You call me up out of the blue wanting something and whatever it is, you’re willing to fuck me for it.” He smiled sweetly. I wanted to break every perfect tooth in his mouth.

It didn’t matter that he was right. I hated him for it. “So if you knew I wanted something, why’d you fuck me?”

His grin got wider. “That’s an easy one. You’re a good fuck. That’s it. That’s
all
you’re good at, Shoshanna.” He wagged his finger at me. I wanted to rip it off, it
and
his dick.

“Fucking asshole.” I was close to tears but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Pulling open a dresser drawer, he grabbed a t-shirt and then turned toward me as he pulled it on. “I’d do you that way too, if you’d let me.” His right eyebrow raised. “Whaddaya say?”

I grabbed my clothes and shoes from where they lay in a heap on the floor and headed to the bathroom. Before I went in, I stopped and turned to look at him. “Don’t you even want to know what I wanted from you? It wasn’t money, you know.” I tried but knew deep down there was no salvaging my dignity.

“I’ll be completely honest with you, Shoshanna, which is more than you’ve ever given me. I don’t give a rat’s ass. If it was anything more than a few orgasms and a memory, it’s not happening anyway.”

I whipped my shoe at his head. Sadly, it missed by a long shot. He laughed at me, continued laughing even as I began to cry and sought out the sanctity of his massive ensuite bathroom.

He knocked a few seconds later and I wiped my eyes a little before I opened the door to what I was sure was going to be an apology.

I was wrong. He was standing there holding out some bills. “For cab fare,” he said.

I hesitated, not wanting his money, but it was a long ride home. And he was loaded. I snatched the money and slammed the door in his face while he laughed.

Standing at the marble sink, I looked up into the mirror at my own face, the makeup smudged and half worn off after the sex and the tears. I
looked
like a whore.

And for the first time in my life, I
felt
like a whore.

* * *

I cleaned myself up and got down to the main floor, asking the doorman to get me a cab, somehow holding it together until it arrived only moments later.

I cried all the way home, the entire half-hour drive.

The first thing I did when I got into my apartment was rip off all my clothes and stand under the hot spray of my shower for almost a half hour. I wondered if I could drown, standing in the shower, swallowing water every time I hiccupped from the racking sobs.

Phil Silver needs to die, I thought, wishing for half a second that I had the kind of brain that was good for dreaming up clever methods of exacting revenge. But it wasn’t in me, I had always been the one to just walk away, taking the easy way and just fading out of someone’s life as I pleased. Or so I’d thought.

Finally turning the water off, I stepped out of the shower and looked at myself in the steamy bathroom mirror. I didn’t have a face; I was just a vague shape, a blur in the middle of the condensation. Grabbing my bath towel, I wiped the mirror and stared into my reflection.

What had happened?

I knew the answer. I had been used and taken advantage of. But what hurt worse, was that I knew deep down what Phil had said was absolutely true.

In the early light of that morning, my emotions raw, my body and mind naked and alone, I realized he had been right. I
was
a gold-digger.

It wasn’t just a subtle game to play with men to get a trinket here or a special trip there. It had become my life. It had become how people saw me, how I was defined. Shoshanna Rosenblatt: slutty gold digger extraordinaire. Spoiled princess. Vacuous whore.

Still looking at my own face, I blinked, looking for the real Shoshanna Rosenblatt, the one only
I
knew. I found her staring back at me, tears rolling down her cheeks, scared and alone.

The alarm went off in my bedroom. I turned and glanced at the clock radio. Five-thirty, time to get up.

“Get your shit together, Shoshanna,” I told the girl in the mirror before I went to turn off my alarm.

Chapter 10

When I got to work, although I looked better than I had when I left Phil’s place, (thank you, cold compresses and
a lot
of concealer), I felt worse. I had skipped the gym and gone straight to work, stopping at Starbucks first for a pick-me-up of the liquid kind.

I tried to push the events of the evening before to the back of my mind, not emotionally prepared to deal with the reality of it yet. I needed to talk to Bev first.

When she came in, all perky and wide-eyed from all the sleep she probably got over her dateless weekend, she stopped at my desk to chat.

“How was your weekend?” she asked, innocently enough.

“Shitty beyond comprehension,” I said, taking a sip of my double espresso latte, so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

“Want to talk about it?” If Bev lacked in the party department, preferring to hang at home and do her nails than go out dancing and flirting, she did make up for it in the supportive friend department. Yes, I did want to talk to her about it, but not here, not at the front desk where someone could interrupt at any time.