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Overview
An incendiary tale of sex work from a young literary provocateur
Love is a fever dream of a novel about a young sex worker whose life blurs the boundaries between violence and intimacy, objectification and real love. Startlingly vulnerable and lyrically deft, Maayan Eitan’s debut follows Libby as she goes about her work in a nameless Israeli city, riding in cars, seeing clients, meeting and befriending other sex workers and pimps. In prose as crystalline as it is unflinching, Eitan brings us into the mind of her fierce protagonist, as Libby spins a series of fictions to tell herself, and others, in order to negotiate her life under the gaze of men. After long nights of slipping in and out of the beds of strangers, in a shocking moment of violence, she seizes control of her narrative and then labors to construct a life that resembles normalcy. But as she pursues love, it continually eludes her. She discovers that her past nights in cheap hotel rooms eerily resemble the more conventional life she’s trying to forge.
A literary sensation in Israel, Maayan Eitan’s debut set off a firestorm about the relationship between truth and fiction, and the experiences of women under the power of men. Compact and gemlike, this is a contemporary allegory of a young woman on the verge.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780593299692 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 03/08/2022 |
| Pages: | 112 |
| Sales rank: | 528,905 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.10(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
You didn't have any friends
You had a terrific laugh. You had long legs, big tits, a flat belly. No, you were fat. You came from ruined homes, well-off families, your parents were madly in love with each other. Your father was an accountant, a kibbutz member, homeless, a linguistics professor at a university. He loved you like his youngest daughter. You were an only child. You were born to a large family, after years of treatments, you were adopted. Immigrated from Ethiopia. You were good at math, you majored in accounting. Hebrew literature. Kinesiology. You wanted to work with children, become a lawyer, your mother was a drug addict (sobered up without help), your uncle was a doctor. No, he was in jail, for attempted murder. You were blond, in summer the ends of your hair were bleached white. No; your hair was as black as a raven, and curly. You were born in Saint Petersburg. No no: your parents came from America, you were born in the suburbs, you replied to them in Hebrew when they talked to you in a jumble of foreign languages. You spoke Russian until you were seven then you forgot it, the snow too. You knew no other language but Hebrew. You refused to answer your grandparents when they spoke Amharic to you. You pretended not to understand them. Your father, the accountant, raped you in his office. Your grandmother kept the key from the '48 war. You were the good granddaughter, the prettiest girl in school, you had eyes that turned violet when you were angry, that you made sure to close on your first kiss. You had sex. You never came. No! You came every single time. You hated swallowing but did it anyway. You liked it so much you stopped in the middle to run to the bathroom and stick your fingers down your throat just so you could taste him again. You spat. Two months later you jumped off a high-rise. You were admitted to a psychiatric hospital. You arrived at the ER with low electrolytes and acute liver failure, but they pulled you back right from the edge. Lucky you. You spent a week in the ICU, then returned. Now you had money. You bought nice clothes. Toys for your nephews and nieces. Sponges so you could work through the month, without stopping. When you ran into each other in the car-someone getting in, someone out-you didn't smile. You laughed. Your laughter was so loud that your neighbors got sick of it. You pretended to moan while you wept miserably. You wept miserably. When you returned home and removed the makeup from your face it blended with tears of happiness. When you went out with your childhood friends you ordered cheap drinks, then more expensive ones. You didn't have any friends. You had a boyfriend who was a computer programmer and you worked only when he was on reserve service, or abroad for work, and you talked of getting pregnant but you were on the pill and didn't tell him. You liked women. You liked men. A lot. You didn't like anybody. You were pretty, you had normal skin, freckles, chapped lips, and you clipped your nails until your fingers bled because you were afraid that you might hurt someone. You didn't want to hurt anybody. You wanted to kill them all, you wanted to shout, one time you screamed. But it was a mistake and you did not repeat it. You kept your mouth shut. You had sex in public restrooms, dance clubs, on the steps of the lifeguard tower on the beach, in a luxury hotel, in your own bed. You got in the car that waited for you in the evenings with the same ease that you got out of it in the morning. What did you have to lose? You didn't have anything.
I said a blonde!
In the entrance to the first room stood a heavy, short man with a towel wrapped around his body and said, I don't believe it, I asked for a blonde. I tossed my hair (dark) while he pressed his fat fingers to his telephone screen. I tried to keep an impartial expression. Who knows, we might have to meet again. In the meantime he said, I told him a blonde! and turned away from me. (Mary had a little lamb, I hummed, a little lamb, little lamb.) I smiled respectfully, turned around, and got out of there. Sergei, in the car, looked at me. If he wanted to ask something he did not ask. I sipped from the plastic bottle I filled with arak before I went out, wiped my lips with the back of my hand and laughed, Assaf told him he's getting a blonde. Sergei giggled and reached for my bottle. The street was dark, and we waited. I stroked the book that I put in my bag and did not pull it out, because there are times in life when you have to escape happiness. I checked my email on my phone, sent another apology to a friend who said she had something important to tell me. Sergei's music, K-pop, roared in my ears. His wife (he told her he's started to guard a construction site at nights, or a parking lot, a profitable job, and did not look at her) surely pushes away the two children who snuck into their queen-size bed, they got them their own beds in the spare room, they should learn to sleep by themselves already, and still the kids insist on joining them in their bedroom. But Sergei's with me now, and we still have long hours before morning. Sometimes later than morning. If I'm getting two hundred an hour, I thought, and half of it goes to Assaf via Sergei, how much does Sergei make? He left the radio and looked at me. He didn't seem discontented. I looked ahead, beyond the car glass, through the hedges to the villas, maybe I could see something. Someone, I imagined, stands in a darkened room and stares at me. I straightened my back. I reapplied the lipstick that was smeared by the alcohol. I tried to imagine how I would look if I were blond. While we waited for a new address from Assaf Sergei asked how long have I been doing this, and told me again about his wife and two kids, a boy and a baby girl, and he told her it was an excellent job, time passes, and she looked at him. The car was hot and I said, You don't mind if I take off my nylons, do you? Be my guest, he answered, and looked at his telephone screen while I twisted in the passenger seat and took off my stockings, fourteen ninety-nine on sale in the store, last chance, no returns and no refunds, but I never pay for these things anyway. Lib-by Lib-by, Assaf sang in my ears when I called to check if there were girls needed and told him my name. And she is mi-mine, Lib-by, Li-li-lib-by. Do you have kids, I asked in a voice that sounded pretentious to me too. Too high. What, only parents know this song, it seemed to me that I could detect caution in his voice, anger maybe. No, of course not, I answered. I don't know why, but I wanted him to like me. So what do you say, do you need a new girl or not?
Assaf
Assaf didn't ask to meet me. Already that same night I met Sergei, then Dima, Yehuda, another driver whose name I'd forgotten, Yair, maybe? Three, or five, or seven others with whom I slept every night, sometimes twice, sometimes night after night, it depends on who's working, or if they asked for me, but I didn't meet Assaf, and he didn't ask to meet me. I felt sorry. I wanted him to look at me.
You're not pretty
Libby is not a good name, said Karin when I introduced myself to her. No one will want you. She was even skinnier than me and wore platform high heels and spoke quickly and when I looked at her I saw a spark of true madness in her eyes, unlike me, unlike who I imagined I was. She looked at me from the front seat. I knew exactly what she was thinking. You're cute, but let me come up with a different name for you. (You're not pretty, I thought while she scrutinized me, and also, what are you doing here?) She stared at me for a short moment. Bar, she decided. Get me Assaf on the phone, she ordered Sergei, we should tell him, with a name like Libby no one will want her. Sergei groaned. He had two kids at home and a wife to feed and he didn't have the energy, but he had plenty of time, so he put Assaf on the speakerphone and Assaf yelled at Karin and told her to shut up and sang, Her name is Libby, and she is mi-mine, Libby Libby Libby, Sergei joined him with a heavy accent, and that was it. I became Libby.
Men looked at me
They stared at me when I sat alone in the cafés, searched for my eyes when I walked past them in the street. They called me names: sweetheart, love. They kissed me with their eyes closed and stroked my face with their fingertips. I pushed my body against theirs, held their flesh, told them my secrets. They didn't want to hurt me. I am not strong. You never know how much I could suffer. I wore my ring on a thin chain around my neck. At first I felt its absent weight on my finger, then I forgot about it. I found other things to do: wandering the city cafés with nothing to do, I pulled books out of my bag but did not read them. Men looked at me. If there was need for it they'd asked for my number, or leave theirs, but I preferred joining them, in their rooms. They cooked black coffee on the stove while I threw up the contents of my stomach in their bathrooms; recited poetry to me; we smoked together. Then we had sex, their stubble scratching my inner thighs, the house cat jumping around us. Their semen never had any flavor. I bit them. They didn't bite back. I waited for them to fall asleep before I got out of there. I'm not pretty. Men looked at me. They talked to me, stopped me on the street, in bars, in cafés. We spoke. They went to the world's top universities, wrote books, poetry. They came in my mouth, my ass, on my breasts and belly. Their come was thick and sharp, dark almost. I slowly gathered my clothes even though their eyelids were heavy and they weren't looking at me. Then I got out of there. Men looked at me. They stared at me, bared their teeth when they smiled to me. They had money; the whiskey we drank was well-aged; they had heavy carpets, large TV screens, clothes made of expensive fabrics. I nodded when they spoke. Any other reaction would have been impolite of me. I bought new clothes every day; thin, black silk tops that felt strangely chilly when they slipped across my belly as I took them off. I pocketed a bottle of perfume; I liked its name. I fell asleep with their arms around my waist, but my sleep was erratic, brief, and eventually I slipped from under their bodies, put on my clothes again, and got out of there. I am not pretty. At first I forgot their names; then the sight of their homes, their bodies, the things they told me. Finally I decided to go to the hospital. The money I had in my wallet was exactly enough for the disposable razor and the taxi fare. I tore the plastic apart with my teeth in order to take the blade out of it. I am not pretty. I returned the next morning. Men looked at me, smiled to me when I passed them on the street, said that I was pretty when I asked them. I was running out of money. The eye shadows I bought were expensive, the dresses, the high heels with the black, thin ankle straps. In cafés I ordered cheap drinks, then progressively more expensive ones. I ate only rarely. When my money was almost completely gone I looked for a job, but the food joints and big-business owners refused to hire me. I'm not pretty. Men looked at me. I walked them home arm in arm, I rode in their cars with them. They had goose bumps when I touched them. I'm through, I thought, I'm really through now. They fell in love with me. When I snuck out of their bedrooms at dawn I looked in their wallets. Before I took the blade out of the razor I checked which bus lines stop by the hospital. My silk blouses stuck, wet, to my wrists, and were completely ruined. I returned three days later. Men looked at me. They bought me presents, gave me money. I laughed loudly when they complimented me. I'm not pretty. They slept with me, pouted when I didn't come. I wore lace-top nylons. When I returned home I showered or did not shower. Men looked at me. They touched me, pulled up the hem of my dress on the steps of the lifeguard tower on the beach. Winter will soon be here. When they left I stuck out my finger and drew long, deep lines in the sand. Then I put it in my mouth and chewed the sand that got stuck to it. It had no flavor. But men looked at me. They dedicated poems to me, books, text messages, newspaper articles, conceptual artworks. I am not pretty, but my movements are quick and my mind is sharp. So I didn't throw away the razor and also bought an antiseptic cream this time. When I ran out of savings I went to the desert, knocked on my father's door and asked him if I could stay there. He gave me a bed in my childhood room. Men looked at me. They slipped their hands down my back when they welcomed me, pricked up their ears when I talked to them. How long could I stay there. At night I read cheap paperbacks, long novels, everything I could lay my hands on. When I fell asleep my sleep was erratic, brief. I dreamed that men were looking at me. They ripped the nylons off my thighs, moved my silk underwear to the side. I felt nothing but the slight wind. On the beach I searched for mother-of-pearl shells, and found none. Seahorses hovered in midair. I closed my eyes. The waves had a salty sound and the sand, once again, didn't have any flavor. Something came in, left, and left something. Men looked at me. They rented rooms by the hour for me in the suburbs, gave me money, asked me: What is this thing. I changed my telephone number. I bit the tips of my fingers till they bled, my lips. I tried to come; I stuck to the appropriate level of honesty; occasionally I sighed. Then I got out of there. Men looked at me. They were worried about me, paid for the coffee I ordered, tried again and again to talk to me. I smiled. I am not pretty. I swapped the black silk tops for a high- waisted leather skirt and sharp-heeled boots, clothes that I had slipped into my bag when one of the salesgirls wasn't looking; at midnight I got into the stranger's car with a sure foot. In the morning I returned to the café, my eyes free of makeup, and men looked at me. I looked back. I went with them to the matinee. The reconstructions have been made as authentically as possible! The films have been made as authentically as possible! When they shivered I put my hand on their hearts. After the movie we drank hot chocolate. I laughed. They looked at me and I saw that there was true affection in their eyes, the corners of their mouths. Even though I'm not pretty. The short skirt lay in my bag. Thirty minutes before midnight we said goodbye. I kissed them on their cheeks, laughed again because their stubble tickled me. Then I got out of there. In the mall restroom I tore the plastic off the disposable razors and changed my clothes.
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