15

DANCING WITH GAY MEN is not Alex’s preference. But with women there was a problem. Alex had had a few girlfriends, but in man-short Israel—emigration and war tends to thin out the number of available males—even the most desperate women are not that desperate. Alex’s sexual orientation simply does not correlate with his sartorial preferences. Neither is cavorting on the dance floor with straight men an option. What straight men seek Alex cannot supply. Nor can he take to the dance floor in lesbian bars. The bulge in his pants tends to give him away. Surprise: lesbians are not interested in straight men disguised as women. So when he wishes to dance as a woman he is all but compelled to dance with gay men, which is what he is doing at a beachfront bar called Ema, Hebrew for mother.

On this particular evening, the hunk Alex dances with follows her back to where she has left her drink and places a large hand around her waist where a bustier just covers her navel. With her own equally large hand, she brushes it away.

“You don’t find me attractive?” the hunk asks. Clearly unaccustomed to resistance, even in Dutch-accented English his tone reveals equal parts disappointment, resentment, and shock.

“I’m sure you’re a nice person,” Alex answers, her voice dropping an octave. Sometimes this works.

The hunk persists.

“I don’t think you get it,” Alex says. “I’m not into men.”

“It’s a gay bar,” the hunk says, not without reason.

“Anyway, I have to be in uniform in three hours.”

The Dutchman’s eyes light up. Apparently he likes uniforms. “You’re military?”

One thing about hunks, Alex thinks: if they ever had brains, these early on atrophied from disuse. She is beginning to realize she may have to clock him. “Isn’t everyone?”

The hunk leans forward but stops suddenly, as if pulled back on a string. In this he is no different from everyone else in the bar. The pulsating music, the lights, the movement all seem to pause.

Sirens at this hour can mean only one thing.

Within seconds, the bar is deserted as its customers scramble for the exits, find their vehicles, and take off to report to their units.