The following day, we watched George W. Bush declare war on Iraq on the telly. I taped it and wrote a song called “War Eve,” integrating parts of his God-bless-America-and-all-who-defend-her-and fuck-everyone-else crap into it.
That night, I was too agitated about the war to even get in touch with my normal sexual anxieties. We were still shy around each other sexually and wanted the mood to be right. I lay in bed and could not relax. I kept thinking about my RAWA friends. Two of them had come to my town on a speaking tour of the US to raise money for RAWA. We spent an evening together so I could help them polish up a speech they were giving in front of a Jewish group the following day. I begged them to eat dinner, forcing them to look at a takeaway menu. They wanted to try chicken pizza, which turned out to be a big favorite. And I finally persuaded them to give me fifteen minutes to drive them around my city so they could at least see what it looked like. I know for a certainty this was the only time they took for themselves during their entire visit. They were twenty years old. They didn’t date or fall in love. And I didn’t know if they had any family left. The next time they came, I couldn’t even get them to eat a chicken pizza. To me, they were true revolutionaries.
“You’re all tensed up.” Melissa massaged my hands, and I drifted off, thinking about the night we met and how she had held my hands in hers. She continued to press on points in my palms and fingers that sent the first warm, fragile waves of comfort through my stomach. I felt like baby Moses floating down the river about to be found. Melissa sat on the end of the bed and applied pressure to my feet. A sense of well-being flooded through me. With her strong hands, she pressed harder on my arches and toes until I was in ecstasy. I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I woke up the next morning.