Eitan's Chord Read online

  Eitan’s Chord

  By Shira Glassman

  Copyright 2015 by Shira Glassman

  Smashwords Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Torquere Press Publishers

  P.O. Box 37, Waldo, AR 71770.

  Eitan’s Chord by Shira Glassman Copyright 2015

  Cover illustration by Kris Norris

  Published with permission

  www.torquerepress.com

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Torquere Press. LLC, P.O. Box 37, Waldo, AR 71770

  First Torquere Press Printing: December 2015

  Eitan's Chord

  by Shira Glassman

  ***

  Eitan wishes for a Chanukah miracle: that his wife Abigail's floundering homemade jewelry business will finally have some success. While they sleep, three Chanukah Fairies come to their studio apartment and work their magic.

  ***

  For Caitlin, who taught me to bead.

  ***

  Abigail manipulated the needle-nosed pliers with the dexterity and concentration of a surgeon. Loops and coils began to form in the wire in her tiny hands, their fingernails painted with blue glitter. She popped another bead onto the straight end--this one a piece of polished jasper in the shape of a heart.

  "Girl, princess in the night, way up in your castle, guess I'll take that fliii--i-iiight." On the other side of the room, Eitan sat on the beanbag strumming his guitar as he watched his wife work. Something didn't sound right to him. "Fliii-i-iiiight," he tried again, with different chords. "Fly? Fly. Fly, fly, fly."

  "What do you think?" Abigail interrupted.

  "Hm?" Eitan called from his guitar.

  "I can wear these with my brown dress to Dante's Christmas party, right?"

  "Brown with more brown?"

  Abigail pouted. "But these beads are really pretty."

  "Princess in the niiiight..." He strummed again. "Yeah, but why not put another color with it?"

  "Are you sure?"

  "Fly." Strum. "Why can't I get this song to sound right? I had it the other day. There was this great chord in my head in the shower—"

  Abigail bounded across the room with the earrings in one hand. "C'mon, see how they actually look on," she insisted, slipping them into the holes in her earlobes.

  Eitan looked up at her, seeing the earrings for the first time. They sparkled and glowed from Abigail's smiling face, complementing her hair and bringing out the richness in her large brown eyes. "Oh. Yeah, that's really pretty! I thought they'd be boring, but they work."

  "See, silly?" Abigail sank down onto the beanbag beside him, snuggling close. "And that's why I'm the one making jewelry around here. I'm not as clueless as I look."

  "Get any hits on the store yet?"

  Abigail's smile warped into a tilde. "I don't think so. I haven't heard my phone go off."

  She got up and checked. "Nope..." By now, the smile had completely vanished. "I don't get it. It's the Christmas season, and my stuff is good. Shouldn't everyone be snapping it up? I know I have good prices."

  Eitan shrugged. "Keywords?"

  "I have jewelry, necklace, earrings, all the identity words plus 'pride' on the pride stuff, gift, Christmas, Chanukah—"

  "—how did you spell it?"

  "—both ways." She arched her eyebrow at his interruption, smirking. "If we had money for it, I'd buy ad space. But if we had money for an ad we wouldn't be eating macaroni and cheese."

  "What about Craigslist?"

  Abigail regarded him with serious eyes. "Craigslist," she repeated. "Huh. You mean like, show the pictures there and link back to my shop?"

  "Yeah! Why not?"

  "Where's your laptop?"

  "On the bed."

  She didn't have far to look—it was only a studio apartment.

  While she worked, he put the guitar away and rifled through his desk—catch-of-the-day from a dumpster dive six months ago—for a box of matches. By the time she'd closed his computer and come back to the table, he'd gotten the menorah all set up with one tiny candle all the way over to the right and one in the center.

  "Aw." She squeezed his hand.

  "You ready?"

  She nodded. Somewhere outside, something with a siren Dopplered past.

  He handed her the matchbook. "Here, you light the shamash. It's symbolic. It's... you light me up, and I'll do the rest."

  Abigail grinned, gazing down at him. "Set that one to music, too. Some day you're gonna have a whole audience feeling the way I feel when I hear you say shit like that."

  "That's the idea. Working on it." Eitan ran his hand through his hair as he held out his other hand to give her the matchbook.

  Her nimble fingers maneuvered the cardboard, and then the familiar crackle of a newborn flame filled the air and wowed them into silence. Eitan followed the tiny glow as Abigail lifted it to the shamash's wick. Then he carefully picked the other candle up out of its cup and held it into the extant flame.

  As he placed his now burning candle back into position, Abigail began to sing. "Rock of ages, let our song...."

  Eitan harmonized with her, but in Hebrew. "L’cha naeh l’shabeach..."

  They were clasping hands, but still staring at the burning lights, by the time the song finished. "Show-off," Abigail murmured.

  "That's how I get all the pretty girls," Eitan quipped. "It's not really a hard song to harmonize, though."

  "Let's put out all the lights. It's prettier that way."

  Eitan shut off the desk lamp--another dumpster find--while Abigail reached up to pull the dingy cord on the single lightbulb on the ceiling.

  She was right--it was gorgeous. The peace of the holiday settled over their tiny room, and he quickly shucked off his binder and replaced his clothes with pajamas.

  They held each other on the bed, propped up on pillows, watching the pair of flickering flames. "You're my Chanukah miracle, Eitan."

  "No, you are," he said, in his best teasing voice. She was warm and felt like home.

  Abigail yawned. "We can't fall asleep before the candles go out."

  "It'll be okay--I'll watch them. Maybe that chord from before'll come back.”

  “I wish I could sell just one necklace,” Abigail mumbled as she drifted off against his chest.

  So do I. His eyes remained steady on the gentle chaos of the little yellow points as they elongated and shrank against the random movement of air in the darkness. A prayer flitted through his mind, and until the candles dimmed and sighed to smoke, he concentrated on that wish. Abbie's jewelry. She'd be so happy if it sold.

  Please let it sell. Let everyone find it. We need the money, but also—she'd be so happy.

  Now the only light came from the window by the kitchenette, where the property manager hadn't fixed the broken plastic blind.

  Eitan put his arm around his sleeping wife in the darkness and joined her almost instantly.

  ***

  Meanwhile, the smoke from the end of the candles continued to wisp from the blackened wicks. If Eitan had been awake, and shone his phone in that direction, he would have seen the two plumes of smoke join and settle on the table in front of the menorah. They twisted together around each other, like a double helix of DNA, until a definite shape formed.

  She was a delicate creature, only as tall as the menorah, with long hair stuffed into a glowing yello
w tichel, and big dark eyes. Her dress was long and white. Out of the corner of someone's eye, she might have been mistaken for a lit candle.

  Noiselessly she tested her wings, translucent and shaped like a butterfly's, then rose into the air. The kitchenette was easy to find in the light of the broken blinds; she headed straight for the stove.

  Another being like her, but with a larger bust and thick, sturdy thighs, was struggling to climb out from underneath the front left burner. She strained her muscles against the heavy coil of metal, causing sweat to wilt some of the impeccable gel job on her short, golden-brown hair.

  “Latke!” called the first little fairy. “Are you stuck?”

  “I'm almost out,” panted the tiny butch. With one final heave, she wrenched free of the burner and flew out of the drip pan. “Whew!”

  The two fairies greeted each other mid-air with a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Did you let Dreidl in yet?” asked Latke.

  “No,” said Menorah. “I came to find you, first, in case it took both of us to get the window open.”

  “Let's go, then.” Latke led the way, alighting on the windowsill beside the front door. She took charge of one window latch while Menorah grabbed the other. Then together, their hands turning red from exertion, they pushed the window up, up, up just a few inches—enough for a fairy to fit.

  Menorah stuck her head through the gap and looked up toward the mezuzah on the doorpost. “Dreidl! You awake yet?”

  “Coming!” came the muffled voice from inside the box.

  Soon, the mezuzah's lid swung open like a door, and a third of the little sprites emerged. She was shorter than the other two and wore a pale-gold sparkly party dress fluffed out with tulle petticoats. As she spun in the air, her skirts twirled and the other two fairies could see the Hebrew letters that went all the way around it.

  “Whee!” Dreidl finally touched down on the windowsill, and promptly deposited a kiss on both Menorah and Latke's waiting faces.

  “Quickly, let's go,” said Menorah, after checking to make sure Dreidl had remembered to close the mezuzah up again so the prayer inside wouldn't fall out while she was gone.

  The fairies fluttered around inspecting the apartment, filling each other in on the young couple. “He's a cashier at the co-op,” said Menorah. “He also teaches guitar lessons on the side, and volunteers for the trans crisis phone line.”

  “Sounds like an all-around mensch, a decent man,” said Latke.

  “She works retail at the mall,” said Dreidl.

  “Ohh,” said the other two fairies, wincing in sympathy.

  “Exactly,” said Dreidl. “They're in the middle of the Christmas rush. Just today, she was screamed at by three different customers for being low on stock!”

  “Poor thing,” clucked Menorah.

  Dreidl added in a shocked whisper, “One lady even told her she'd ruined Christmas.”

  “I wish people like that would just shop online,” Latke groused.

  “Speaking of online—that's why we're here,” Menorah reminded the others, for she was the eldest. “Eitan made a wish that Abigail's jewelry would sell.”

  “Let's grant his wish!” Dreidl clapped her hands and spun around, her skirts flowering in her wake.

  “Chanukah is for miracles, after all,” said Menorah.

  “Where shall we play?” Dreidl darted around the room, eagerly searching.

  “If we're granting a wish about the Internet,” said Latke, “shouldn't we be playing on the laptop?”

  “But it's so hard!” Dreidl pouted.

  “We can use Eitan's jacket as a cushion,” Menorah suggested, pointing to the worn but warm leather draped over one of the folding chairs in the kitchen.

  “We'll have to use magic to lift it.” Latke pointed one hand at the jacket and concentrated. As if inhabited by a ghost, the jacket lifted itself from the chair. Latke's arm trembled.

  Dreidl rushed to her aid. “I'll help.” Together, with their arms out in front of them, they moved the coat to the top of the bookshelf where Abigail had left the laptop when she'd finished posting.

  ***

  “Whew!” Latke collapsed backwards into the soft material. “So much heavy lifting tonight.”

  “She was trapped under the burner,” Menorah explained to Dreidl.

  Dreidl nodded knowingly. “Cheap apartment stove. We should pamper you, Latke, for all your hard work.”

  Latke grinned and held out her arms. “I'm not saying no!”

  Menorah and Dreidl settled down on either side of her, and she wrapped one arm around each fairy.

  Snuggling close, they began to nuzzle her neck. Latke turned to Menorah first, and kissed her on the lips. The feeling of both fairies' touch on her skin overflowed her soul with pleasure. This, she thought, must be how the sugar feels when it melts into the tea. She turned toward Dreidl and kissed her as well.

  When Dreidl released her mouth and moved her head down to Latke's chest, Latke buried her nose in Dreidl's hair and inhaled deeply. Dreidl smelled like sweet doughnuts baking, sufganiyot, comforting and decadent.

  “May I?” asked Dreidl, her hand on Latke's shirt.

  “Go for it!” Latke grinned.

  Menorah, her other hand idly stroking Latke's thigh, helped Dreidl peel up Latke's shirt to grant the gift of her breasts to the night air.

  Latke's eyes rolled back in her head and she moaned softly as the other fairies expertly licked both her nipples. If she focused, she could tell them apart—Dreidl's touch more eager, more erratic, Menorah's skillful and practiced, more focused on pleasing Latke than amusing herself—but why focus, at a time like this? Why not just disappear under the waves of magical tongues that could delight like no other?

  “You girls better be planning on moving farther down pretty soon or I might actually break something,” Latke gasped.

  “Don't break the laptop!” exclaimed Dreidl. “Abbie's is already bricked, and they can't afford to replace it.”

  Menorah slid her hand farther up Latke's thigh until it slipped beneath the fabric of Latke's loose shorts. She had easy access to Latke's vulva, and she stroked her tender outer skin carefully. Or at least she tried to, as Latke ground demandingly against her fingers.

  “If you take your shorts off, I'll give you what you want,” Dreidl purred.

  Latke didn't need her to say it twice. She snapped her fingers and the shorts winked out of existence.

  As Dreidl nibbled a dainty trail from Latke's right breast, across her stomach, to her thighs and between, Menorah raised herself to her knees and hoisted her long white skirts. “Got a free mouth?” she asked.

  “I'm ready for you!” said Latke, placing one hand on each of Menorah's soft, fleshy thighs. Her journey toward the other fairy's vulva was halted by Dreidl's arrival at her own, and for a moment all she could do was sigh in ecstasy.

  Latke tilted her head to fit better between Menorah's thighs and nosed open her folds. With attention to gentleness, she sucked Menorah's tiny clit.

  As Latke's energetic tongue instinctively synched with Dreidl's attentions between her legs, she was momentarily struck by the curious illusion that it was her own mouth she felt against her vulva. It made her bestow on Menorah the sensations she wished for herself, so as she craved harder touches she found herself licking more intensely.

  “Too much!” Menorah gasped through her moans.

  Every fairy is different, Latke reminded herself. And we are all delightful.

  Treating Menorah's clit as the most delicate and precious of treasures, as if one of those sugar-grain tiny blooms on a mountaintop, Latke altered her technique.

  “Ohhh... yeeees....”

  Clearly, it had worked. Now Latke tingled with pride on top of her arousal, and she felt more deserving of Dreidl's lusty licks.

  Dreidl's dedication bore fruit, and Latke felt that tornado of glitter stirring within her that meant climax was near. Now she was ready to work her magic.

  Concentrating on thr
ee wonderful things at once: the delicious softness between Menorah's legs, the talented mouth buried between her own, and the human Abigail's jewelry website, Latke shimmered into orgasm. As she came, golden fairy dust radiated from her bare skin. It was fine like confectioner's sugar, and it seeped through Eitan's jacket onto the laptop beneath.

  Within minutes, it would disappear, bonding with its target. But for now, it lay around here and there in irregular patches as if someone had spilled expensive makeup.

  “Ohhh, you're good at this,” Latke said to Dreidl, pulling her closer by one arm. “Kiss me some more!”

  “My mouth is tired, but okay!” Dreidl inched up, back into Latke's arms.

  While they kissed lazily to give their poor tired lip muscles a rest, Menorah left their side and Latke heard wings fluttering around the room.

  “Sweet girl,” said Latke, petting Dreidl's hair.

  “My turn,” said Menorah as she returned, landing on the laptop en pointe. She carried one of the humans' Chanukah candles in her hands. It was about the size and shape of a very short licorice stick. “Dreidl, time to lose that skirt and be the top you are, after all.”

  With a smirk, the youngest fairy extricated herself from her sticky languor and pointed her finger to several places around her waist. Then, with a snap of her fingers, the poofy skirt vanished to reveal the rest of her pale gold corset and black garters. The corset sparkled with the same letters as the skirt, of course.

  She took the candle from Menorah and held it over her pelvis, and snapped her fingers again. The candle stayed fastened to her pubic mound as if part of her. “There. Perfect!”

  “I hope I got you ready for all that!” Latke marveled at the size of the candle, as big as a two-inch-across dildo on a human.

  “You know I've had thousands of years of practice,” Menorah reminded her as she lay down on the leather jacket and pooled her white skirts around her hips. “But you can keep on getting me ready. This is a group effort, after all!”