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  • 00067 A Queer Don Carlo Ch. 01

00067 A Queer Don Carlo Ch. 01

The Israeli Opera Tel-Aviv-Yafo needs an assistant librarian, and Rachel enters the librarian's office to apply for the job. Leah, the chief librarian, attentively listens to her and peruses her résumé, but she suddenly feels a pang – Rachel may be lesbian!

Leah is bisexual and, like most non-heterosexuals, has developed a "gaydar" in order to detect people of a compatible orientation. It is quite useful, as her husband Reuven allows her to have extramarital relationships with women – as long as they don't endanger their consortium.

Rachel is really attractive – her breasts fit this biblical passage, "Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies", while Leah's body, somewhat older, fits this other passage, "I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favor".

Both women now know each other's secret, due to their "gaydars", and they also know that they are attracted to each other; Rachel feels somewhat sad, and Leah asks her,

"What's the matter? Your résumé is perfect and you may be fit for the job."

"It's quite dangerous to be one's supervisor's 'special friend'."

"You're right," Leah answers, "What if I don't hire you, but recommend you to another employer, so you'll have your job without being held in my leash?"

"Which employer?"

"The Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion – they hire young musicians, and according to your resume, you're a good flute player."

In the afternoon, Rachel plays the flute in front of Yechezqel, the orchestra conductor, who says at last, "May I speak 'dugri' [honestly]? Your flute technique isn't up to our standards. You've probably spent too much time keying text and too less time practicing the flute. Even if you started practicing twelve hours a day, six days a week, it will take two years at least before you can have a chance to get hired by our orchestra – and I assume you need the job now."

"So there is nothing you can do for her?", Leah asks, and Yechezqel answers, "I'm lashing out at her flute technique, not at her musical talent. Her voice is intriguing, and I hope that ... Leah, can you take the score from the piano?"

"The 'Don Carlo'?"

"Precisely that! Open it at the 'Gran Finale' of the Second Act."

"Here you are."

"Rachel," Yechezqel asks, "Can you sing the aria, 'Sire! Egli è tempo che io viva.'?"

"Sorry, I can't read Italian."

"Sol-fa it!"

"It's for tenor. I'm a soprano!"

"Are we supposed to do anything easy here?"

"Obviously not. Things can be made in three ways: the right way, the wrong way, the Israeli way," Rachel jokes before sol-faing the song – and it does that remarkably well, pleasing both Leah and Yechezqel.

"It will take much less time for her to become an opera singer than a flute player," Yechezqel says, and Leah remarks, "Rachel, do you want to know what has Yechezqel had you sol-fa?"

"Why not?"

"Let me translate the aria: 'Sir! It's high time I lived. I'm fed up with leading a dark existence in this land! If God wants that your wreath will once crown my forehead, prepare Spain a King worthy of it! Give me Brabant and Flanders!'"

"It begins as a coming-out song!" Rachel says, and Yechezqel adds, "Right. We want to stage a Queer version of Giuseppe Verdi's 'Don Carlo', in which Don Carlo is actually a soprano ..."

"And that explains Elisabetta's inability to love Filippo," Rachel notices, "If she's a gold star lesbian, who can't persuade herself to love tenors, she's only willing to love another soprano."

"Right," Yechezqel said, "And which is the contemporary state that despises people lacking the required 'limpieza de sangre, purity of blood', and even the members of parliament they vote – and treats part of its territory as colonies inhabited by political and religious rebels to its sovereign authority, to be militarily crushed?"

"Er ... Israel?"

"Bull's eye!" Leah answers.

"So we can see Elisabetta as a hypostasis of the Diaspora," Rachel suggests, "Who feels the duty to love Israel, but can't because Israel is too jingoistic and male-chauvinistic for her taste – if it behaved in a more inclusive and feminine way, she could."

"And Don Carlo is 'Yisrael Acheret, The Other Israel' she can positively and lovingly relate to," concludes Leah.

"What about Rodrigo?," Rachel asks, "And Eboli, the princess who unrequitedly loves Don Carlo?"

"Eboli isn't just a stereotypical Jewish American Princess," Yechezqel notices, "She incarnates the conservative lobby, which is all too willing to compromise with those who purport to be in power and to wield it ruthlessly – kind of an AIPAC ante litteram."

"While Rodrigo is a 'lesbro', a male who behaves as if all lesbians were his sisters," Leah adds, "and represents the progressive lobby, like JStreet."

"In the original work, the relationship between Don Carlo and Rodrigo reeks of homoeroticism," Rachel says, "In a way, you haven't inserted homosexuality in the work – you've changed its form."

"Yes! The Grand Inquisitor represents our Foreign Minister," Yechezqel says, "And guess where are we setting the final scene?"

"Do tell me," Rachel asks, and Yechezqel giggles, "On Mount Herzl, obviously!"

"Whom are you raising from the dead in order to save Don Carlo?!?" Rachel asks goggling in amazement, and Leah answers, "Theodor Zeev Herzl – whomever else?"

Rachel titters, "I'm sure that your 'Don Carlo' adaptation will shake Israel more than the Fukushima earthquake-cum-tsunami has shaken Japan ..."

"... and the Israeli establishment more than the play 'Malkat Ambatya = The Queen of a Bathroom' in 1970!" Yechezqel concludes.

"Are you going to join the production?" Leah asks, and Rachel says, "Yes, I do."

The rehearsals are scheduled in the afternoon, so in the morning Rachel goes to the Opera Library to help Leah not only to sort the books and lend them to the musicians who need them, but also to install a new outstanding library software.

And in the afternoon Leah brings Rachel to Rishon LeZiyon for the rehearsals; Reuven, Leah's husband, has been introduced to Rachel, and has raised no objections over the relationship between his wife and her – he even regards Rachel as a nice friend.

He knows that whenever Leah makes love with a woman in the afternoon, she's also more sexually available to him in the night – so he doesn't complain; he too is allowed to have sexual relationships with women, but he's never sought them.

But even for Leah being allowed to have a relationship and actually enjoying it are quite different matters: women love long courtships, and even though Leah and Rachel feel doomed to sleep together sometime in their life, they want to enjoy all the transition between friendship and love.

The transition ends one evening, when Leah discovers that one of her car's tires is flat. She phones Reuven, who says, "Leah, I'm able to be here in half an hour, but ..."

"But what?"

"If I were in your shoes, I would tell Rachel that your husband can't help you and that you have to choose between a taxi and a hotel."

Leah giggles and tells Reuven, "You naughty boy! I'm afraid that Rachel won't forgive you!"

"You'll both thank me tomorrow! Good night!"

"Golden slumbers, darling," Leah says before hanging up, and booking a room for the hottest night of the season.

The next morning Rachel receives an SMS telling her, "Hey! Are you staying overnight in a hotel with other people? Avi."

"Who's Avi?" Leah asks, and Rachel answers, "A stalker. He keeps telling me that I'm beautiful and that I deserve a boyfriend like him, but I keep saying 'No'."

"Does he know that you're lesbian?"

"No. He hangs around with important haredi rabbis, who would ostracize me if they knew, and he would feel challenged to win me over. Better to still live in the closet."

"Why don't you report him to the police?"

"I tried to, but the police told me that he hadn't crossed any red line, so they could do nothing."

"No red line crossed? He knows your whereabouts. So he must keep watch on you! Report the message to the police!"

"He isn't just a stalker. When I met him first I shuddered as I felt that he was really wicked, and later I would learn that he might be a mobster."

"Gosh!"

"He is now behaving like his Sicilian colleagues – they warn whatever man nears the girl they covet that it is highly unadvisable to woo her."

"Luckily you're lesbian!"

"Yes, but if I came out of the closet, I would endanger all my girlfriends – including you!"

"A real quandary!"

"I don't think he will suspect you – if you like, we can continue meeting and staying together."

"I like. And my husband loves you too."

"Your husband?!?"

Leah giggles, "Don't worry, Reuven isn't asking you anything – and if he does, I'll divorce him. He only loves you as a friend."

"Whew! It wouldn't have been the first time a married women first had sex with me, and then proposed me a threesome with her husband."

"I love you, Rachel. I also love Reuven, but these feelings are separated and will be enacted separately. By the way, Reuven is now coming here and taking us to the Opera. Let's shower and dress."

When he arrives and takes them aboard, he asks them how did they spend the night; Rachel answers, "Your wife is like a good cup of coffee: hot, strong, and kept me awake all night!"

"As usual," Reuven smiles, but Leah tells him about Avi, and Reuven says, "The best plan is to meet at our home. When Rachel gets in, I go out."

"And Avi?"

"Nobody gets suspicious at two girlfriends visiting each other several times a week. Neither Avi, I hope."

The plan is approved, and for several weeks, whenever Rachel visits Leah, Reuven gets out with his iPad 2 and goes to a WiFi-equipped bar in Dizengoff street first, and then to a gay club in Rothschild Boulevard to meet his friends, play cards, and author the club website.

The trick works for months, until the henchman Avi has charged with keeping watch on Rachel tells his boss that whenever Rachel visits Leah, Reuven gets out after a few minutes – and Avi sees through it.

A few days later, on Ayalon Road, a Cadillac runs into the back of Reuven's Toyota, slamming it against a truck laden with concrete, and destroying the car. The airbags save Reuven from injury, but the Cadillac driver doesn't even care to ask Reuven how is he – he just throws his insurance company's and his own business card into Reuven's car, and instead of phoning the Magen David Adom for an ambulance, he callously remarks, "You've really been lucky. Had a concrete-laden truck smashed your car against mine, you wouldn't have gotten out uninjured!"

The Cadillac and truck driver have no criminal record, and the insurance is willing to buy Reuven a new car, but he fears that Avi is behind the accident, and he talks about it with his gay friends.

"Avi?" one of them asks, and another adds, "We know him. He loves to surround himself with beautiful women, but he's bisexual at least."

"Really?"

"He eats kasher, hangs on Dov Lior's every racist word, even has some settlements guarded, but he's a 'top' gay male who sanctifies the Friday Eve in Tel Aviv's saunas and darkrooms."

"Darkrooms?" Reuven asks.

"Yes. What are you scheming now?"

Some sex-toys named 'fleshlights' emulate a vagina, others a rectum, and some even a mouth. Reuven buys the last two, together with a live streaming infrared IP webcam, and he configures it in order to stream the movie to YouPorn via Wi-Fi.

Then he begins attending saunas and using the darkrooms; the first time the bartender titters, "What are you carrying in your backpack, Reuven?"

"Lots of condoms, bottles of lube, and even a first-aid kit, in case something goes wrong."

"Reuven, let's speak dugri," the bartender frowns, "You're quite fatty, and you won't cruise a lot of people. For all you need, a spectacle case will be enough."

Actually, the backpack contains the fleshlights, the webcam, a cellphone, a pair of infrared goggles, and a taser gun (the last two borrowed from a friend in the military); the bartender is right – Reuven isn't very attractive, but he has a few occasions to please people, not with his body, but with his fleshlights, taking advantage of the nearly complete darkness of the room.

The next Thursday evening, Avi enters Reuven's darkroom. Reuven wears the infrared goggles, and recognizes him, as Rachel has shown him a photo of Avi's.

Avi undresses and asks Reuven, "Are you 'top' or 'bottom'?"

"'Bottom', but it doesn't matter anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Please, dress up. I don't feel like having sex with you."

Such refusals are rare in gay darkrooms, but even there 'No' means 'No'.

"Why?" Avi asks, and Reuven answers, "You smell strangely and ..."

Reuven seizes Avi's penis, palpates it, pretending he can't see in the dark, and says, "I'm afraid you have condylomata. Sorry, I'm not going to have sex with you."

Avi gets angry and says, "You lie! I've even been inoculated against Papillomavirus!"

"Sorry, I've said 'No'."

Avi gets incensed and says, "I'm not here to be poked fun at! Now you take my cock into your ass!"

Reuven takes a cellphone, clicks a button, and says, "Hello, police?"

Avi assaults Reuven, tightens his hands around Reuven's neck and tells him, "You may not have a cellphone in this darkroom, as it is forbidden by the club regulations! Stop bantering me! You won't have safe sex with me – you will perform a blowjob and even swallow my come!"

"As per your wishes," Reuven says feigning surrender – but he takes the fleshlight that emulates a mouth, and slips it on Avi's penis; then takes a step backwards, grasps the taser, and shoots Avi.

A taser immobilizes its target until the electricity is cut off – and to prevent the taser battery from running down, Reuven plugs the charger in.

Then he takes the cellphone he was actually using, talks to the police, and when he hangs up, he tells the still painfully immobilized Avi, "You'll pray for the police to come to your rescue soon!"

The infrared camera has uploaded everything, and a few days later a haredi rabbi visits Avi, who is still in hospital, because tasers aren't as harmless as the manufacturers claim, and shouts, "That you regularly cruise gay people can be tolerated – but that you even cruise people who read 'Haaretz', as the movie in the darkroom shows, is intolerable!"

But the movie doesn't just show that: while the meantime Israeli police is pressing charges against Avi for assault and attempted rape, a team of Interior Ministry officials keeps reviewing the clip, and then concludes, "Avi is uncircumcised – but he claimed he was Jewish when he entered Israel. So he obtained Israeli citizenship under false pretences, must be stripped of it and deported to his home country."

So a mob gang is dismantled, Rachel feels free to come out of the closet, she and Leah keep enjoying each other's company, some women are attracted by Reuven after hearing of his act of bravado, and the 'Queer Don Carlo' is staged by the Israeli Opera Tel-Aviv-Yafo – drawing the ire of the Israeli right and the praise of the Israeli left, but manages to last a whole season, not just the 19 repeat performances 'Malkat Ambatya, The Queen of the Bathroom' lasted in 1970, and some opera houses abroad even buy the rights to perform this particular adaptation.

We don't know what Verdi and Herzl may think of it – but they both loved freedom and penned it out for their peoples.

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