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Anatomy of feelings, the column of Eshkol Nevo: «Back neckline»

This article appeared in the 43rd issue of Vanity Fair.

It all started at a party. On a roof, with friends. She was wearing a light sweater. Open back. A tattoo emerged from the neckline on her back. A tree, or a flower. I couldn’t tell because she was only sticking out the top. I’d never found her attractive before. A friend’s girlfriend is taboo for me. And there was something unpleasant about her character. Overbearing. But that open back on hers drove me crazy. There is no other word. Throughout the party I danced behind her for a peek and looked for an excuse to put her hand on it.

I didn’t want to take her to bed. Just to place a hand between her shoulder blades. But I couldn’t find a way to justify it. I felt that the desire to touch her was so intense that if I stayed at the party, I risked making an embarrassing gesture.

So I went home.

At home I collapsed on the couch fantasizing about his back without the sweater on, and within twenty seconds I was already there. Over the next few days I was possessed. I know that there are people who have the most varied fetishes. Shoes. Leather dresses. They always seemed a little ridiculous to me. Instead I discovered that an obsession is not funny at all. The obsession chases away every other thought, leaving only one, which repeats itself in a loop: touching his back. His back. His back. I had just started an internship at the National Statistical Institute. When I sat in the office, the numbers got mixed up in my head. At night, I barely slept. After a week in those conditions I realized that I had to act before my life went down the drain. I called her and said I needed her help. She asked me what it was exactly. Reluctantly. He’s a lawyer, he must have thought I needed legal support.

At that point I told.

I was convinced I was going to stutter, but it came out loud and clear. And desperate.

A long silence followed, I was already regretting, how can you be so stupid.

Then she said, you amazed me.

And I said, actually I surprised even myself.

And he said, I’ve never thought that I have a particularly beautiful back, isn’t it too thin?

And I said, exactly how I like it.

And he said, this is hands down one of the creepiest conversations I’ve ever had.

And I said, I don’t know what you thought about me, but this whole thing for me too…

And he said, I think it’s best to decide that this conversation never happened.

And I said, right.

And we hung up.

A few minutes later he sent me a photo of his back, completely bare, with all the tree tattoo.

Thanks, I replied.

The next day another photo arrived, from another angle.

It went on like this, one photo a day. And I always said “thank you”. She didn’t write. When we met with the whole group she ignored me, she mostly just made annoying remarks to her boyfriend.

The photos ended without warning, just as they began.

I didn’t ask for more. I felt that she had already done the impossible for me.

About this time he left my friend and I met my wife; her life has taken her way, and those crazy weeks when she cared for nothing but her back now seem to me, looking back over the years, so remote, so improbable – and so beautiful too.

Source: Vanity Fair

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