Longings by Imelda Wei Ding Lo
It was a hot summer night. Malka pondered on her current emotional state as she tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. Insomnia was not something she usually struggled with, but ever since this train of thought had seized her a few hours ago, she had been unable to turn off her mind.
Just what kind of man was that neighbourhood boy, Joel? And why was she, once again, thinking about him? There was nothing really out of the ordinary about him - though, she had to admit, he was probably more psychologically complex than almost anyone else she knew. Whether that was a good thing remained to be seen.
Perhaps he was yet another messed up man looking for a woman to ‘redeem’ him or worse (like her father), some kind of escape from the cruel realities of life.
Better off staying away from him, she thought to herself. Someone who pushes himself to change so much and so often is probably deeply insecure - who else would, through the sheer force of his will, forcibly metamorphose from a painfully shy, stuttering squirt of a boy to an argumentative, opinionated youth.
Now in his mid-twenties, Joel had noticeably mellowed out, although he was still keen on sharing his political and personal beliefs from time to time. At his core, however, she could still feel he was somewhat shy, although stubborn and opinionated as well.
Yet, she understood how and why he wanted to change himself. Growing up, she had seen him bullied at school, physically assaulted by bullies who looked down on his naivety, small stature, and inability to speak fluently in any language. He stuttered not only in English, but also in Yiddish — speaking Yinglish (that creative blend of English and Yiddish that many Jews on the Lower East Side spoke) didn’t help either.
So perhaps the overly argumentative and opinionated front he had put on starting in high school was his way of saying fuck you to the bullies. Yes, that was probably what it was — an expression of his desire to rise above the belittling insults of his oppressors, a way of liberating himself from others’ expectations and assumptions about what a small, weak boy like him could amount to.
She had never gone to any of his debates in person and had only heard about how he was like at Debate Club from some of her friends, but what she knew did impress her somewhat. According to Gloria, Joel had joined Debate Club with his characteristic, very noticeable stutter, but by the four-month mark, he only stuttered when he felt he was losing or admitted defeat, which was an increasingly rare occurrence by the second-month mark.
“Sure, he was annoying,” Gloria had relayed, “but even those of us who didn’t like his overly opinionated stance had to agree that he had a certain way with words.”
“I could hardly believe it was the same Joel Farber,” Tamara continued, laughing.
“The same kid who always sat in the corner, avoided eye contact, and almost always gave one word replies. Gosh — I recall how my brothers dared each other to talk to him, and see how many words they could get out of him. The most that Josh could get out of him was five or six, I recall. Zack could only get one word out of him - and that was a no!”
Malka grimaced, remembering how Zack loved to ask Joel ridiculous questions to get a rise out of him. “Did you eat today?” he would sneer at him whenever he passed by the Farbers’ peddler cart.
“Did you brush your teeth today? It certainly doesn’t look like you did.”
“Do you have any friends?”
“Do you even know how to talk?”
“Have you ever talked to a girl?”
Kids could be terribly cruel. Zack was now twenty-seven, married, and a protective, over-indulgent father to a pair of twins. It was now hard to imagine this hardworking young man as anything but a responsible citizen with a good head on his shoulders and decent morals. But perhaps that too was a facade. If Malka had learned anything during her twenty-three years on this earth, it was that almost everyone had a facade — and that such facades, contrary to what many believed, were created primarily for the sake of the person, rather than for others.
Just look at Father, Malka thought to herself as she lay on her stomach, propping her head up against her pillow. Father is a broken, depressed shell of a man — but he likes to believe he is an attractive, confident Lothario, a real ladies’ man, and this is why he prefers to emphasize this aspect of himself.
Communication would be so much easier if people were more honest about what they really wanted from others and what they really wanted to be.
Her thoughts wandered to Joel again. What did he want? He was now working, ‘happily’, he claimed, as a bookkeeper at some law firm. He seemed quite satisfied with his burgeoning career and there was always work to do.
But what else did he want? He had been quite tight-lipped about the other aspects of his life during their date last week, preferring to discuss politics, religion (he was an avowed atheist), and his friends Sam and Frankie’s antics.
But then, what did she want? With a pang of guilt, she wanted so much, perhaps more than what the world could offer someone as insignificant as she. She wasn’t ordinary though, she thought, not without some pride — she was perhaps too perceptive to be lumped into the ‘ordinary’ category. But she was admittedly insignificant, at least during this stage of her life. She was just a waitress, nothing more, nothing less, earning perhaps even less than Joel’s peddler father, who wandered street from street, his wagon filled to the brim with lackluster products from the break of dawn to sunset.
She wanted to experience so many things — acting in those moving pictures Sam was always talking about, travelling to a different country or somewhere in the West, get to know interesting, complex people with dynamic personalities and goals she could only dream of, soaking in the warm, humid air of an entirely different climate — the tropics, perhaps.
That’d be nice.
Her eyes fluttered shut as her mind drifted off to Joel, once again. What did he want? Did he also want to experience the things she wanted to experience, or was he as bland as he wanted to appear? Somehow (and perhaps she was once again over-estimating her ability to read others), she sort of sensed he was more than he appeared. Yes, he wanted to appear ‘ordinary’, but perhaps, he too wanted more than what every Tom, Dick, and Harry took for granted.
She had enjoyed the date more than she let off. On the surface, yes, their subjects of conversation seemed typical. But Joel was a man of many layers, she felt — there was something beneath those dark eyes she wanted to unmask and uncover. Just who was he? How would it be like to see him in a more vulnerable state? And how would he react to her if she told him more about herself, about how she felt torn between maintaining that fake, cheerful facade that she now felt was now an integral part of herself?
What was being truly genuine like, she wondered? Even if she knew the answer to that question, could she be totally genuine with Joel? Would he look at her with disgust or worse – indifference - if she dared to reveal that her spunky, cheerful personality was just that, a facade so she could better cope with reality?
Perhaps she was just infatuated with his appearance. Some of her friends, like Tamara, would’ve laughed in her face if she admitted this out loud. Admittedly, Joel was not what most women would typically consider handsome, but Malka had never cared for those generic-looking ‘heartthrobs’ who prowled the theatres and stages of the Lower East Side and beyond. He was below average in height (so was she, for the matter) and he was neither brawny nor square-jawed, but he did have intense, dark eyes, a pleasant, intelligent visage with a pointed jaw, and a slender, proportionate build.
And he had beautiful hands. During their date, she had been unable to tear her eyes away from those hands. They were large, yes, but smooth and crowned with tapered, graceful fingers. He has the hands of a scholar, as her mother would have said.
Joel’s hands were so unlike those of her father. Her father had large, rugged, paw-like hands, with thick, sausage-like fingers and large, reddish knuckles. The hands of a working man, he had proudly declared back when he was still the owner of Spitzer’s Shirts, before everything went to shit.
*****
She still couldn’t sleep. It was too dark to see the clock, but she reckoned it was nearly 3 in the morning now. Luckily, she did not have work tomorrow, but she should still get some proper rest. Perhaps she should not have thought so much about Joel — somehow, thinking about the man had made her even less tired than before.
Without really thinking, her hand slipped down her body and into her panties, confirming what she had already suspected. All those thoughts about Joel, his hands, and his looks were not for naught. She gasped slightly as she gently touched her wet opening. Sliding two fingers into herself, she noted with a grimace just how easy it had been for her to get to this state. Ah, she could no longer hide it from herself — she really did have a soft spot for that argumentative, opinionated brat. Her mind could do all the mental gymnastics she wanted to avoid coming to that conclusion, but not her body.
She didn’t like to go too deep inside herself during these sessions — it felt uncomfortably tight the further she went up. Maybe she was too conservative — as much as she’d like to consider herself a modern woman and a freethinker, maybe she was still too deeply influenced by her parents’ parochial, old-fashioned beliefs, and this was why even her own body wouldn’t let her enjoy even this little bit of pleasure by herself.
Instead, she slid her slick fingers out and brushed against her throbbing clit, filling her with warmth. Consumed with lust, she was no longer able to think about anything but her own pleasure and (much to her chagrin) a certain peddler’s son.
As her mind wandered to bits and pieces of the conversation they had shared, his tight smiles, and his elegant hands, her other hand drifted upwards to her breast as she began to caress her clit more vigorously. Pinching her nipple with her other hand as she continued to thrust her hips against her probing finger, she let out a soft moan as she inched closer towards release. She shivered as her knees began to quiver and the intense sensation between her legs overwhelmed her remaining lucid thoughts. Arching her back and containing her desire to cry out (after all, she was still living with her parents and kid brother), she buried her face in the pillow as she climaxed.
Spent, Malka let out a deep sigh of contentment as the last of the spasms cleared. Before she drifted to sleep, however, she decided that she was going to see Joel tomorrow — mark her words.
“I decided to trash ‘Longings’ because it’s in third person and I now prefer writing in first person for characters like Malka and Joel, since they’re the protagonists of my graphic novel, ‘The Book of Joel’. Also, although it’s quite well-written from my perspective, Malka didn’t quite feel like herself. Her narration could’ve been stronger, and there could’ve been more details about her interests and life outside of her family and friends. I should’ve shown that, but this was written before Malka was a fully developed character.”
Imelda Wei Ding Lo (she/her) is the founder of Fortunus Games and a graphic novelist, podcaster, and writer. Her short stories have been published in the Victoria Literary Festival and the Sixpence Literary Journal. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @fortunusgames.