2004, New York, New York

By Sarah Iverson

Sorbets were originally made of fruit, honey, aromatic substances, and snow…. In France, sorbets with an alcoholic base are served between the main courses to aid digestion and stimulate the appetite for the remaining courses. – Larousse Gastronomique

My marriage owes a lot to a first date. It was the best date of my life, and it was not with my husband.

I had been telling my psychologist that things might start up again with my ex, Ethan. I was having these dreams in which he and I ran together hand-in-hand through a field of zebras.

“I think it’s a sign,” I told her. “I called him up and asked him to go to the zoo with me.”

“Yes?”

“He said he’d go. He said, ‘Sure, Sarah, I’ll go see the animals with you.’” I looked around her office to avoid eye contact. I do not enjoy discussing sex with my therapist; I really feel it’s none of her business. “You know how in a fancy meal they sometimes serve sorbet between courses?”

“Yes….”

“Well, what I’d really love is to just have, you know, a palate-cleanser.” I had the feeling – and I was correct – that once I got back together with Ethan, I wouldn’t be seeing anyone else. He was the main dish. “I just want some fun, no-strings-attached sex. I want to go out on a date with someone, take him home, and sleep with him. I’ve never done that before. I’ve never had a one-night-stand.”

Which goes to show you that it’s important to be honest with your therapist, because she may have magical powers. I wish I’d asked for diamonds, too.

The very next day, I met my friend Jill at a posh Italian restaurant. I wore, as a pure expression of joie de vivre, my sluttiest blouse and the new bra I’d been pressured into buying by the undead sales force at Victoria’s Secret. My décolleté was as opulent as the truffle papardelle.

Our waiter was golden-skinned and gorgeous, with abundant black ringlets. He looked like he’d been computer-generated from my fantasies.

What is he, I wondered. Greek? Lebanese? He had a slight accent, and waited on us with a crazy kind of grin, like he had a secret. There was something strange about his eyes. They were black and large and seemed to stare straight through me. Did he have x-ray vision? Could he see my Padded Push-Up Demi? (Blue.)

Jill and I ate well and stayed late. We were the last table. When she got up to go to the bathroom, the waiter sauntered over with our bill, leaned on the table and asked me, “So, where are we going now?”

“What do you mean we? I’m going home.”

He grinned. “Oh, come on. It’s so early.”

He turned out to be Israeli, which explained his confidence. Israeli men are the best pick-up artists, pound for pound. I believe this comes from practicing on women who carry machine guns.

Jill went home, he and I went out, and one martini later, he said, “Should we go to my place or yours?”

“Oh,” I said, “I think you’ll enjoy mine.”

This was during my sponging-off-the-rich period. For four years, I had been passed among the wealthy women of Manhattan, utilizing my various talents (yoga teaching, cooking, SAT tutoring) to help enrich their family lives. In exchange, I got to live in homes with six-burner stoves, saunas, and stationary wave pools. Rich people like to have poor, artistic types living with them. It’s sort of like having an outer borough au pair.

My current gig was as a live-in cook in a two-floor penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side, and my boss, a widowed hotelier, was away for the whole week. I showed my guest the two terraces, the Jacuzzi bath, the steam shower.

I had had a lot of good sex at that penthouse, all of it with my ex. The lower terrace was surrounded by tall walls of greenery, so it was completely private. It is incredible to be able to be naked, outside, in New York City. But it was too cold for that this night, so I fixed us another martini with my boss’s secret stash and we sat on the upper terrace with a blanket around us.

We drank and watched the boats float down the East River. Then we went into my bedroom.

We took off our shirts and sat side-by-side in the vast, white bed that had spoiled me for futons. He looked over at me and said, “I love them. I’ve been looking at them all night.”

I’d never had someone refer to my breasts that way before, as if they were people. It was charming. My breasts rose to their feet, applauding.

“You have the craziest eyes,” I said, rolling a joint. Up close, they were even weirder: dark-rimmed, as if he wore eyeliner.

“Yes, I have problems with them. I see a neurologist. I get headaches from tension.”

“Really? Have you tried yoga? I teach my students eye relaxation exercises sometimes.”

“Teach me,” he said.

I told him to close his eyes and relax. Then I began to describe the exercise, but he interrupted me.

“Wait. I’m still relaxing.”

This disarmed me. The whole night was like that. I sat and watched him breathe, watched his thick black eyelashes tremble against his skin. Then I led him through the exercise, very slowly. We had plenty of time.

He looked fabulous against the 300-thread-count sheets. He seemed to shine all over, and he had a young man’s naturally ripped abs. He was in his prime. I was poised on the peak of a slow decline. I had just quit boxing because I couldn’t make featherweight anymore. I got up and dimmed the lights before taking off my skirt.

“You make me feel kind of old,” I said.

He laughed. “You’re not that old.”

This was not reassuring. “I’m 30,” I said. “How old are you?”

“25.”

Well, big deal. That’s not that young. But I had never slept with such a beautiful man before, and it was intimidating. I like to be the prettiest one in bed.

We lit the joint and passed it back and forth. He said, “You remind me of Renee Zellweger in Brigit Jones’ Diary.” He was not the first person to say this. I took it as a compliment, since this was before the sequel came out in which she looks swollen and pasty. “I like her,” he said. Then he turned me over and told me I had a beautiful ass.

At last, playing to my strength. I had confidence in my ass. Several times I had overheard this conversation at the boxing gym:

“Is that a white girl?”

“Her ass is kind of big, though. She could be Spanish.”

I loved that my ass could pass. And so I lay there under him, letting it take the night air, letting it radiate. Then he put on a condom and we fucked for a long, long time. He was in shape.

He had a sort of happy-go-lucky lovemaking style. There was nothing neurotic about it, no frenzy, no kink. I thought about Israel while we fucked. Not about any of the controversial things, just about the beautiful things. I thought about the warmth. I thought about the beautiful beaches and the waves breaking on the beaches. I thought about how good and pure the milk tasted there and how that must have helped him grow up strong and smell so good and have such beautiful skin. And then I thought about lemon sorbet.

I usually can’t come with a new lover, but this was different. He made me feel so comfortable, and the weed helped, too. So I savored the feeling of knowing the pleasure was coming. His fingers snaked around to flick my switch. I was not surprised when he went right to it, without reconnaissance. Men like that know the lay of the land.

When we were done I threw the condom in the sterling silver trash can. Then I lay back against his chest and we rested. It’s peaceful in a penthouse.

“What does your name mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know the word in English. There are many trees. In Lebanon.”

I thought for a moment. “Cedar? Cedars of Lebanon.” He nodded. I wanted to say something about cedars, but couldn’t think of anything. So I said, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shade and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

He reached for my nipple ring. “I only have one more condom,” he told me. “Do you want to use it now or in the morning?”

“Now.” He began kissing a line down my chest. “And you should carry more than two condoms with you. Be optimistic.”

He ate good pussy, too: I believe that’s another thing they learn in the army. Before we fell asleep, he said, “Most American women don’t know how to do this.”

“What do you mean?”

“To have fun like this. It is very rare.”

I sort of knew what he meant. What we’d done did feel rare. It was intimate, but it was free. Then again, maybe he’d been with the wrong Americans. I fell asleep and dreamed about zebras.

When I woke up, I stared at him for a while. He looked just as good in direct sunlight. I sneaked out to buy some smoked salmon and espresso beans; a man like that deserves a superior breakfast. We kissed goodbye and I never heard from him again.

Later that day, Ethan came over. He had broken my heart a year before, but I knew he wouldn’t do it again. I knew, in fact, nearly everything about him. I had met the family, washed the dirty laundry, heard the ballads, answered all the questions. Except the important one: yes or no. I sat across the table and eyed him.

He had come back, which meant his answer was yes. But what was mine?

It came down to a question of appetite, and sorbet makes you hungry. I am convinced that it was the date with the cedar of Lebanon that made me reach across the table to Ethan, that made me say, “I don’t know what I want, but I know what I want right now.”

One thing led to another and we never made it to the zoo.

Sarah Iverson is an essayist and children’s novelist. Her first novel, Iris, Messenger, will be out in May from Harcourt. It is about a 12-year-old girl who discovers the Greek gods are living in her suburban Philadelphia town. Before becoming an author, Sarah was a Golden Gloves boxing champion, chef, yoga teacher, hedge fund recruiter, sperm lab technician, personal trainer, calculus tutor, and wine seller. She lives in Brooklyn.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, January 26th, 2007 | Email This Post

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