Chapter 8

“Hi,” I said, as the duplex apartment door locked behind me.

“Hi,” Yael grinned, standing barefoot on the third stair of the entryway, wearing one of my white dress shirts.

“How was your first full day here? Not too weird?”

“No, it was nice. First time I’ve ever played arkeret bayit.” She winked, and extended her hands. “Come!” She guided me into the house, showing me the fresh cut flowers and earthenware she had bought from Carmel Market, the way she had arranged the closets and re-arranged the furniture.

“It’s okay?” She looked at me for approval.

“It’s great.” I stood behind her, sliding my arms around her waist, bending my head to kiss her neck. “I’m so happy you’re here.” I hugged her tight as she pushed up and back, rising on her toes to stroke against me like a cat.

“I am too.” Her fingers drifted along my forearms. “Some of my things felt odd here. Out of place. It’s a good opportunity for a do-over.” She looked up hopefully, head resting on my chest. “Do we have a budget for a few things? Some art, maybe? I’d like to make it more ours.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe next weekend?” She turned in the tight loop of my arms, eyes eager as she wrapped her arms around my neck. “We could make a day of it. See some art galleries.”

“I’d love that. Need to check my schedule.”

“Okay.”

“The gym downstairs needs refurbishment too. Some heavy weights.”

She rolled her eyes a little. “You and your workouts.” She grinned and rose against me, wrapping her legs around my waist. “Not that I object.” Her fingers dug into the thick deltas of muscle at the base of my neck as she kissed me deeply, tongue flickering inside my mouth like lazy lightning.

I groaned against her as I felt her tongue push deep, hips rocking up until she was just above my erection, as if riding a saddle.

Her lips moved over my ear, kissing. “Take me to bed.”

We stumbled towards the bedroom, Yael half-undressing as we went, leaving my shirt and her black bra hanging from a steel balustrade. She giggled as I half-tripped, half-pushed her against a wall as we climbed the stairs, gasping as my lips travelled hotly along her neck, fingers plucking frantically at the buttons on my shirt.

On the bed. Yael curled her body up as I moved over her, twisting away only to shimmy out of her black lace panties before coming back to me, pulling off my trousers as I kicked off my shoes.

Then we were together again, skin to skin, every movement bridged by a chorus of kisses. I slid down her body, lips dragging against her. Her nipples were already as firm and hard as pencil erasers, the skin around them pebbled. I fed them into my mouth, licking the hard nubs with the full length of my tongue as Yael held my hair. Bit them gently until I heard her whimper, hips churning against my stomach.

I pulled back for a moment, head propped up on one hand, gazing at her. Simply taking her in, lying back on the white coverlet of the bed, our bed, her dark eyes half-lidded with passion.

“You’re so beautiful.”

She smiled. “You are too.” Her fingers drifted over my chest. “Your skin, it’s like warm caramel. I could lick it all day.”

I kissed the flatness of her warm belly, licked downwards. Her hands caught my shoulders. “No,” she gasped. “I want you inside me. Right now.”

I reached towards the nightstand. “Did you –”

“No.” I looked back at her as she smiled. “UID. I had it inserted last week.”

I slid up to kiss her. “You’re sure?”

She nodded. “I’m sure. I want to feel you inside me. We’re safe.” She pushed my shoulder gently, rolling me on my back, and straddled me.

Reaching back, she touched my wet flesh, and smiled. Guided me inside her. Lowered her hips with a long, slow, happy sigh, as if the penetration of my cock had driven every molecule of air out of her lungs.

Missing a tenth of a millimeter of latex should not have made a difference. It made all the difference in the world. I felt her now: not just warm, but wet as springtime. Not just a channel, but something living, breathing, squeezing every pore. Every single sensation was enhanced.

She rocked back and forth slowly, working her way down to the very root of me. I could feel her wetness flooding out, slicking against the wiry hair at the base of my shaft. My hands climbed her from her hips to her breasts, worshipping her.

“Mmmm...” Yael shook her hair out and began to ride me in earnest, canting her hips forward on every downthrust. I watched her stomach tightening, the line of her abs standing out. “Can you – “ I spanned one hand across her lower stomach, fingers still touching the line of her hip, and brushed the tip of my thumb against her clit. “Yes!” She started to churn harder on me, my thumb with her, rubbing. “I want to – cum like this – uhhhh – and then, try something – uh – different...”

“Okayyyy...” I gritted my teeth, thighs already beginning to tense, circling my thumb over her clit faster. I knew how wild she could get on top me; it was everything I could do to hold back.

“Yes, yes, yes...” Her hips were blurring fast, slamming down on me, her upper body completely supported by her hands on my chest. I tried keeping in time with her, lost it, but it didn’t matter: by then she was already trembling hard in orgasm, giving herself two, three hard last drops on my cock to finish her climax with a half-pained groan.

She collapsed, panting against my neck. I dropped my head back to the pillow, flexing slowly inside her as my fingers stroked along her spine.

“Let me see if I can...” Panting slightly, she raised herself up and carefully slid one leg from underneath her, placing one small foot delicately on my chest while twisting her torso to the side, sliding her other leg out at the same time.

I groaned. The sensation was incredible: I could feel my cock twisting and straightening in her tight, wet channel as she turned in tiny increments.

“God,” she gasped. “I feel like – I’m on a spit...”

I held her hips. Small whimpers of pleasure escaped her lips as she turned by degrees. There were a few moments when I remained just barely sheathed inside her, but she never left me.

Finally facing away me, she turned her head to flash a triumphant smile. “Not just swimming. Gymnastics too. Now...” She raised herself experimentally, came down slowly. “Mmmmm ... that’s just right...” She began rocking her hips up and down, her body moving in a slow wave.

“I want you ... to watch yourself ... in me...” she moaned, rocking faster, fingers tight on my calves.

I did. It was amazing. I could see her spread open around me, working hips plunging me in and out of her body as her tight ass rotated in small circles. I was panting just lying beneath her.

The pleasure slowly mounted as Yael’s hips dipped and swirled, stirring me deep inside her. I felt tremors running through every part of my body, and read Yael coming close as she planted one hand on the bed between my thighs, using the other to rub her clit fast and hard.

Moving by instinct, I slid my hand from her hip, bringing the wet tip of my thumb over her tight anal rosette, pressing and circling against it in a half-measure rhythm to her churning fingers.

“Oh. OH! Joshua...” she quivered hard, and I pushed a fraction deeper. “Oh, fuck!”

A fraction more, the tip of my thumb slipping inside the tight ring of muscle, and she exploded on me, shaking and crying out. Quivering, she fell forward against the sheets.

I felt myself bend inside her to the edge of pain, and inched backwards until I slipped out. My shaft sprang back almost comically, the meaty thickness of it audibly smacking my belly.

I slid above her, kissing between her shoulderblades. “I still need you. Are you... ?”

“Yes, yes,” she murmured, still panting. She parted her wet thighs on the bed. “It’s yours.”

I shifted above her; with her fingers and mine, I slid back inside her. Yael’s whimpers were high in the back of her throat as I moved hard inside her, fingers grasping the edge of the mattress tight.

“God, yes ... ohh, you fuck me so gooood...”

I flowed from my knees upwards, stroking inside her. I could feel her grinding down against the wet sheets, searching for that little bit of extra friction to get her off again, afraid to let go as each thrust pushed her closer and closer to the edge, until her head was over, hair rocking with my movement.

“Ohhh, ohhh, please cum, please cum ... fill me up...”

Arms braced either side, feeling her tight muscles squeezing down on me, I pounded inside her, feeling the surge growing, sooner and faster than when I had been wrapped. Finally, the pleasure tipped over, and I exploded with a primal groan, feeling her body gobbling up my seed, everything liquid and flowing and one.

We lay together, my weight partly on her, completely spent, like driftwood piled on a beach after a storm.

“Welcome ... home...” Yael finally said, giggling. Her laughter started mine, and we rolled together on the wet sheets.

Months passed before I felt ready to work on the thorny complexities of the Palestinian right of return.

A million Palestinians had either fled or been expelled from their homes in the wars of 1948 and 67. The exodus had scattered them to the West Bank and Gaza, others to Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and around the world. They and their descendants now numbered some four million people.

People who had an absolute right to return to their homeland. But many of the locations refugees had lived and worked in were now Israeli highways, farmland, and shopping malls. How could you fairly compensate someone who’s home had been razed half a century ago? What were their descendants owed? What proof would be considered for a claim?

Israeli had long resisted the return of refugees not only on the basis that doing so would change the nature of the state, but on the grounds that Jewish refugees from Arab countries expelled during the same period had never been compensated for their losses. Any agreement therefore had to cover multiple countries and generations of refugees.

The model I settled on was the Claims Conference, an organisation established in 1951 to compensate survivors of the Holocaust. Made incorruptible and as objective as possible through command, hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian staff began to work on processing claims and determining proper compensation.

Refugees brought in faded property deeds that had hung on the walls of apartments in Gaza for fifty years, precious scraps of paper that had been passed from generation to generation. The center needed waiting rooms, call centers, investigators, lawyers, translators, and intervention specialists for those who found themselves overwhelmed in recounting their tales of exodus and loss. It also needed money – a lot of it – as the claims started having values attached to them, which necessitated another run at the international community for funds.

Late at night I heard steps behind me on the marble. Felt Yael’s arms come around my shoulders, her lips at my ear. “Come to bed.”

I turned my head to kiss the warmth of her forearm. “Soon.” I had been keeping up-to-date on the claims in process while working on negotiated water rights between the territories. On the muted television, a bald-headed congressman was announcing his candidacy for President of the United States three and a half years before the elections.

“You’ve been working so hard,” Yael said softly. “Do you even know what time it is?”