The Gay Haredi

Reuven pressed his black kippah onto his short hair, which was still damp from the mikvah water. He sat on the wooden bench and laced up his shiny black Shabbos shoes. The revolving metal gate to the locker room groaned and in walked a young soldier with a sky blue knitted kippah over his curly black hair. He strode past out-of-shape men in various stages of undress. Reuven hoped the soldier would sit next to him. His heart raced as the soldier stopped at the empty spot next to him, leaned his black M-16 across the bench, sat down, and unlaced his dusty red boots. He smelled of dirt and sweat; his smooth face had several days of black stubble. He had long black eyelashes. Reuven took his time buttoning his black sport coat. The soldier kicked off his boots and peeled off his gray socks. He had hairy toes. Reuven liked hairy toes.
Now Reuven's sport coat was buttoned and he had no more articles of clothing to put on—he had no further business in the locker room of the mikvah. And just when this muscular young soldier was starting to get undressed! There had to be some reason to stick around for a couple minutes. On the flap above the left chest pocket of the soldier's olive green shirt was a silver pin in the design of a snake coiled around a staff.
“Nice snake.”
The soldier smiled and unbuttoned his green shirt. The other men in the locker room shook their heads and clucked their tongues. In this mikvah, people didn't speak. The only sound was supposed to be the water heater's low, steady hum. Halachically, to speak in front of nudity was permissible as long as it was about secular matters and not Torah, but since many of these men were great Torah scholars with a penchant for turning the conversation that way, they abolished locker room talk altogether.
Reuven decided this vow of silence was silly. It was a Jewish mikvah, not a Buddhist monastery. He would just be careful to stick to worldly matters.
“In this week's parasha,” he told the young soldier, “Moshe Rabenu builds a snake out of copper.”
Several of the men grabbed the nearest piece of clothing to cover their genitals.
“There's a snake just like yours,” Reuven continued. “Coiled around a staff, except Moshe Rabenu's snake was made copper, not silver. ”
The soldier laughed. “This piece of tin? It's only the color silver.” He hung his shirt on the metal hook above the bench. The snake hung from the pocket, staring at Reuven.
The other men shook their fists at Reuven, not wishing to themselves break the vow of silence.
“So what does that pin mean?” Reuven said, steering back into secular territory.
“I'm a medic,” the soldier said, taking off his pants. “It's a medic pin.”
“That makes sense. When Moshe built the copper snake coiled around a staff, it was to heal people. When we looked at the snake, we were healed from our snake bites.”
Again, the men covered their genitals.
The soldier pulled down his beige boxer shorts. Reuven bit his lower lip to stop any drool from escaping.
The soldier picked up his M-16, slung it over his shoulder, and stepped over the wet tiles to the mikvah, his tight buttocks flexing with every step.
Reuven took a closer look at the silver pin on the green shirt hanging above the bench. The snake was in profile, only one of its eyes visible, its tongue stuck out in a taunting hiss. It was crafted in detail; each scale had a different shape and texture from the next. Reuven's fingertips itched to touch the scales. He rotated his head like he was working a knot out of his neck. The soldier was in the shower, rinsing off the grime from the street before getting in the mikvah. His M-16 rested at his feet. The other men in the locker room buttoned their shirts or inspected the knots in their tzitzit. Reuven reached out and touched the snake with his index finger. A sharp tingle shot up his arm. His finger traced the snakes body, moving back and forth down the hypnotizing serpent's spine. The outstretched tongue hissed: “Take me with you.” Reuven wanted the snake pin in his mouth. It probably had a metallic taste, like blood.
He once again worked out the knots in his neck. The soldier finished showering, brought his M-16 to the mikvah, set it down on the tiled floor, and climbed down the stairs. His back was to Reuven as his glistening body plunged again and again into the greasy water, splashing the men around him. The other men in the dressing room buttoned their shirts, combed out their side locks, and blew on their feet to make sure they were dry before putting on socks.
Reuven grasped the silver snake by the head and pressed the clasp with his thumb, releasing it. He slid the pin out of the fabric, leaving two scars, like a vampire bite. The fabric was darker green where the snake blocked out the sun. The pin covered less than half of Reuven's palm, yet it felt like a heavy book of Mishnaic commentaries. Reuven slipped it into the inner pocked of his jacket, picked up the plastic bag that held his towel, soap, and dirty clothes, and left through the groaning revolving gate.

In the darkness, Reuven thrust into his wife, pressing her sweaty body into their freshly laundered Shabbos sheets. Miryam tasted like gefilte fish with lots of horseradish. Reuven's sport coat hung on the chair by the desk. In the inner pocket, the silver snake pin transmitted its virility to Reuven in waves. Reuven felt the snake coil around his erection, making him hard as a nomad's staff. His wife squealed and moaned. The snake constricted and Reuven's fingers tore at the freshly-laundered Shabbos pillow case.
A fist banged their thin wooden door.
“We're trying to sleep!” shouted their son Yitzhak. “Do you have to make so much noise?”
Only a thin door separated the bedroom from the living room, where their five children slept. It was a one bedroom apartment, so at night the kids pulled out mattresses and lay them on the living room floor. Reuven and Miryam learned to make love in silence, in a steady rhythm, without any surprise movements. They knew where all the loose coils in their mattress was, so they could avoid rusty squeaks. But tonight their mattress sounded like the scrape of steel girders as a building was demolished.
“Go back to sleep!” Miriam shouted. “Your father's doing a mitzvah!”
“But you're making too much noise,” Rivkah whined.
“Then you'll sleep tomorrow afternoon! It's a mitzvah to sleep Shabbos afternoon!”
Soon Reuven shuddered and became still. As the passion departed his body, guilt flooded him. Sure, he satisfied his wife, which was a mitzvah, especially on Shabbos night, but he only performed so well that night because the silver snake watched him. And he acquired the snake pin by breaking the commandment not to steal. A mitzvah that comes from an aveirah isn't a mitzvah.
He lay on the tangled sheets, the sweat drying on his body, until his wife began to snore softly. Then he got up, avoiding the loose springs so that they wouldn't squeak and wake his wife. In front of his desk, he pulled on his white Shabbos boxer shorts, reached into the pocket of his jacket, and grasped the metal pin. It was cold to the touch. Reuven opened the door to the living room, careful not to let its hinges squeak. His children slumbered, their sheets tossed aside because of the hot summer night. Reuven stepped over their mattresses—they covered the whole living room—opened the bathroom door only a crack so that the light wouldn't wake them, and slipped inside, closing the door behind him.
He opened his fist. The snake stuck out its tongue like an innocent clown, but Reuven wasn't fooled. He lifted the seat of the white porcelain toilet. Then he froze. He should find the soldier and return the stolen object, put up a sign at the mikvah in case the soldier came there to look for it.
No. Reuven couldn't wait that long. He needed to get rid of this cursed object now. It didn't heal him when he looked at it like Moshe Rabenu's copper snake. This silver snake made his sickness grow.
He dropped the snake into the water and pressed the larger of the two flush buttons, the one for big loads. The snake slid out of sight and fresh, clear water filled the porcelain bowl.
Reuven filled the blue plastic hand-washing vessel and poured water on his hands, feeling as if a heavy weight had been lifted off of him. Then he crept through the darkness, carefully stepping over his children so as not to wake them, and returned to his wife's bed.