Coyoacan Mi Amor Ch. 2
The story so far: Online lovers Dan Lissner and Dafna Greenbaum finally have a chance to meet while Dan is on a business trip to Mexico City, where Dafna lives and works as a math teacher at an exclusive private school. This is a big step for a couple wondering how to take a fulfilling but sometimes frustrating virtual relationship to the next level of intimacy. They learn to their dismay that works sometimes gets in the way of pleasure. However, Dafna has her own way of coping.
Some vocabulary notes: The word “dayanu” is Hebrew. It is the title of a beloved song sung at Passover. It means “enough for us.” In the context of the song, it refers to the mighty deeds God did for His people. For Dan and Dafna, it connotes something like, you have done so much for me. I am satisfied, although I know more is to come.
The reference to the actress Lauren Bacall followed by the phrase “Bacall b’seder” is a Hebrew-English pun. “Kol b’seder” is a Hebrew phrase for “everything is OK.”
“Oy vey” is a Yiddish that means “good grief!” more or less.
“Lilith,” in medieval Jewish mythology, was Adam’s first wife, before Eve. Lilith demanded equality and represented the feminine dark side of divinity. Dan uses the name as a symbol of female sexual aggressiveness.
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Dafna Greenbaum raced back to her apartment after dropping the surprise package off at the Hotel Maria Cristina for her online lover, Dan Lissner. She felt elated, confident, scared, naughty. She was sure Dan would go crazy over the package, a pair of freshly worn panties. She knew her Dan.
The panties were the easy part, however. For all her bravado, Dafna wondered if she were heading for heartbreak. She had become intimate with men online before. Sometimes it became raunchy, sometimes frightening; in the case of the San Diego computer marketer, Rafael Bocanegra, both. Until Dan, he was the only online lover to visit Dafna. A suave, aggressively romantic and possessive man, Rafael was passionate in his assertions of love and utterly false in the details of his marital status. The phone call from his wife shattered her dreams then. She threw him out the door as soon as he got dressed. She alerted the tough Israeli security guards who protected her apartment building, to ensure Rafael entertained no hopes of returning, then or ever. Oh that night, her tears, the fury, the lover’s corruption like a bleak dawn vaporizing the hopes of the night.
And so, Dan. Their online passion bloomed so quickly, after she read his profile and hit the chat button on the dating site to which they both belonged. After preliminary throat-clearing they switched to Yahoo instant messaging, and four amazing, orgasm-drenched hours later they signed off. Sunday morning was near in Connecticut, Mexico City remained in sultry spring night. Neither, they admitted later, slept much after those hours of confessions, linguistic puns criss-crossing English, Spanish and Hebrew, past lovers, their faith, Zoloft vs. Wellbutrin, secret desires, her abortion after Rafael left, travels around the world. Only after two weeks of almost daily electronic conversations did Dafna pause.
“What do you know about him? He talks a good game, but that’s what men do,” warned her friend Velma Rodriguez, an English teacher at the Anglo-American School in Mexico City, where Dafna was a highly regarded math teacher and faculty sponsor of the film society.
“I know what his profile says. Divorced, one kid, interested in music, film, volunteer work,” said Dafna. “His profile doesn’t say he is VERY interested in sex, but he is.”
“Every man is. That’s a given. Look, I just want you to be safe,” said Velma, the faculty sponsor of the computer club and webmaster of the school’s website. “Let me check him out. Give me his address and full name and let me do some Internet searches. Maybe he’s a saint or maybe he’s . . . what’s that Yiddish word you like to use for a pendejo? A smock?”
Dafna smiled. “A shmuck, not a smock.”
“Whatever. Before you get too deep, I’ll see what I can find.”
Dafna looked teary. “Velma, I am in deep, already.”
“I’ll run some checks today.”
True to her word, Velma ran Dan’s name through Nexis, US Search, Factiva, KnowX, Switchboard, and Google, cross-referencing the results to uncover discrepancies and the little lies that lie coiled in the shadows of a bright new romance. Nexis showed him still living in Fairfield, Connecticut rather than Stamford, but Velma knew address updates took months to show up on Nexis. She ran down the facts Dafna provided. Princeton – check. Forty-five years old – check. Divorced – check and double check on that detail. Previously wrote for a music industry magazine – check, with lots of concert reviews and marketing articles bearing his by-line available on line. She even searched the weblog www.littlegreenfootballs.com, where, Dan had said, he often posted acerbic political comments under the nom de web “kibitzer.” He did.
She even searched on the name “Laurie Warshaver,” Dan’s Princeton classmate whom Dafna said had made “love eyes” at Dan at a breakfast they had shared in New York in November. Yes, she went to Princeton and was a top executive at a foundation in Philadelphia. Photos from the foundation’s online magazine showed a woman who bore a surprising resemblance to Dafna, younger and taller, but with the same broad shoulders, excellent posture, prominent bust, and poise. A shadow around Laurie’s eyes hinted at quiet sadness. Still, Laurie was very fashionable and attractive; Velma thought, “I wonder if Dan made love eyes back.” Velma bookmarked the pages, but decided to say nothing to Dafna.
After her last class, Dafna checked her mailbox in the administrative offices. She found a note from Velma: “Dafna, super news! Dan is a total honesty machine. I’m impressed! Full speed ahead!”
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Dafna mentioned Dan to Velma a few more times, but then became quiet about the relationship. Dafna feared to speak too joyously of the e-affair, given Velma’s own struggles with romance. And, she had grown tired of friends warning her about online affairs, carping about their supposed shallowness, the dead end of distance, and whether true love and intimacy could blossom and lead to anything substantial in such an environment. Rather than explain and argue, Dafna either kept quiet or simply said she had no complaints. True, she still enjoyed coffee or dinner with other men, and swatted down the rare pleading phone call from the infuriating Rafael, but she found emotional and intellectual satisfaction in her chats with Dan.
She only lacked the physical component. True to their frankness, she spoke about this with Dan.
DAN: What’s cookin good lookin?
DAFNA: Hard day at school. Training session after classes. Lots of traffic. Tired.
DAN: Pobrecita! Can I help you relax?
DAFNA: OK. Sure.
DAN: That did not sound like a very enthusiastic OK.
DAFNA: U know me too well.
DAN: Digame, amiga. Tell me my friend. Is something on your mind?
DAFNA: OK. I will be honest with you.
DAFNA: We are not any other way, right, honney?
DAN: Absolutely.
DAFNA: Our lovemaking is grrrreat. You make me feel so good.
DAN: I feel the same.
DAFNA: I close my eyes and I can feel U Hear U taste U.
DAFNA: But sometimes
DAFNA: Sometimes I get frustrated.
DAFNA: We not together. We have everything but we are so far apart.
DAN: Not the same as a real warm body.
DAFNA: Right.
DAN: We’re masturbating with words on a screen to help us. On some level we are just imaginary images to each other. Fucking with phantoms. It’s sex in the brain, not in the body.
DAN: I guess that sounds harsh.
DAFNA: Is true. I want U so much. Is a problem with Internet romance.
DAN: We have an intense but in some ways superficial relationship. Not real. It’s easy to form friendships with people all over the world. But very hard to take them to the next level if that feels right.
DAN: And this feels right. To me.
DAFNA: I very happy to hear that. But what to do?
