Free Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown

brushed his lip with my tongue.
    “And you have a bit of ice cream, right here,” Abe said as he tilted in to kiss me deeply.
    A shock of wantonness spread through me. My body craved his touch. His kisses grew deeper, and his hand slid up the side of my dress, resting just shy of my bosom, delighting me. With a slight twist of my torso, I had Abe’s hand cupping my breast in a way that made me gasp in desire. His finger was rough on my silky blouse in a most pleasing manner. I could feel his manliness against my leg.
    “Well, I never!” an older woman’s voice said.
    At that, Abe pulled back, and I shot the couple standing there the evil eye. They were clearly Upper East Side—she in a dress with a fur collar that was ridiculous in this heat—and they looked down their noses at the two of us. In as haughty a voice as I could muster, I said, “Perhaps you should! It’s really quite nice.”
    Abe chuckled as the woman huffed and the two walked off. “Young people today,” we could hear the man say. “No morals.”
    The moment was ruined. Abe and I never had a chance to be alone; the only modicum of privacy we had was benches in the park or dark corners of buildings. Not that Abe would give me much opportunity to be alone with him. He insisted we not proceed too far before our wedding night. The refrain I heard most was
“Es nisht di khale far a-moytse.”
Don’t eat the
challah
before you’ve made the blessing.
    How would I make this happen? We had only one place whereprivacy could be found. Camp Eden, the Jewish getaway up north in Cold Spring, where a couple could be on their own. Camp Eden, where I’d gotten myself into this mess to begin with.
    We stood and I smoothed my dress. Abe kept himself turned away, so as not to disturb me with his reaction to our necking. “Walk me home?” I asked.
    “Of course,” he said. By the end of the block, he was more composed, and he placed his arm around my shoulder and I placed my arm about his waist. We walked in comfortable silence back to the apartment.
    When we reached the lower East Side, the very air seemed to change. The fetor of our neighbors’ sweat lingered in the air, as the searing temperatures turned the neighborhood into a steamy, seamy pit. When the heat suffocated apartments, the tenants evacuated like ants swarming toward the fruit spilled off a pushcart. Bedding dotted the sidewalks as mothers sat fanning themselves and gossiping on the stoop, while the children slept outside. Others escaped to rooftops, sleeping in the open air, desperate for that rare breeze.
    “Do you want to come up? The apartment will be empty. Everyone will be on the roof,” I said. My fingers toyed with his shirtsleeve, darting underneath to rub his smooth skin.
    Abe shook his head. “I can’t, Dottala. You know I can’t. It will lead to nowhere good.”
    I put on my most seductive
Vogue
magazine pose. “How do you know it’s nowhere good if you’ve never been there?”
    Abe’s wide eyes took me in from head to toe. “Oh, it’s clearly somewhere good. This little taste of heaven tells me that. But if it gets too heated, I might not be able to stop.”
    With an exaggerated sigh, I rolled my eyes. “As you like, my dear.” As much as I wanted to press him, I didn’t want to scare him away. I needed to get him to Camp Eden. I walked into the front hall of the apartment building, and Abe followed. “You know,” Isaid, trying to sound like I was teasing, “if you just married me already, this could all be yours.” I waved my hands down my body.
    Abe pulled me close, giving me a long, deep kiss. “I thought this was already all mine.”
    I whispered in his ear, “But you could have the rest.”
    He groaned and pulled himself away. “So very tempting, my love.”
    Trying to keep my tone light, as if the idea just occurred to me, I said, “Say, why don’t we go to Camp Eden next weekend? Get away from the heat. Do you think your parents could spare you at the