Cut Throat Dog by Joshua Sobol, Dalya Bilu

be part of what’s happening, to land a good job, to earn a fortune, to make your first million before thirty, and we’re optimistic, but also a little hard, tough, maybe even a little crude, we don’t buy a horse without examining its teeth under a microscope, which is a metaphor of course, because we don’t buy horses. We can be very diligent and very precise, you can’t sell us slogans or grand metaphors. We try new brands willingly, even eagerly, but we don’t stick to any brand. We’re interactive, we like to influence, but we’re also selective, and we buy only what we need, and that too with a critical eye. Our motto is simple: ‘It’s cool to be smart’. But we hate smart alecks, we like things that are direct, pure and intimate …
    And all this is in your and Golan’s proposal?
    More or less, says Moran. If you look carefully, you’ll see that something almost imperceptible changes in the faces of the children after they take the pill. Suddenly the look in their eyes seems to grow older, it becomes wet and eager, and then lustful and passionate, and in the end satisfied and calm, because Golan went to a porno site and selected the look in the eyes of a woman before, during and after orgasm, and put it in the little girl’s eyes after she swallowed the pill, and he did the same with the old grandfather, who takes the pill while he’s looking at the little girl, you can see that suddenly he looks like a twenty-year old in love, and the little girl suddenly looks like a woman of thirty, who knows what it is and who’s just experienced it, and it works instantly on the subconscious of the viewer, because this change in the expression of the eyes during orgasm issomething you recognize in a tenth of a second. We did a lot of experiments on our friends to make sure. It arouses the desire in the viewer to imitate them and to take the pill himself. It works like a peepshow. It appeals to you on your most animal level, and the whole thing is conveyed through the eyes alone, without anyone being able to say what did it to him. We tested it with our friends, and none of them could say what did it to him.
    What did what to him? Yadanuga attacks from his corner.
    I don’t want to tell you, because your attitude is negative in advance, there’s no point.
    Tell me, suggests Hanina, my attitude isn’t negative in advance.
    When you saw it for the first time, didn’t it turn you on? she asks, and offers him her eyes, and he sees in them the eyes of Melissa offering him her lips, wet, eager and yearning, and he feels his penis swelling, and he admits that yes, it turns him on.
    That’s what you want to achieve with your commercial? Mackie attacks her.
    Yes, she says simply, a commercial should titillate. Like the beginning of an affair, like a good book that you can’t put down. It should be sexy like an ‘in’ quarter of the city, arouse unsatisfied cravings in you together with a promise of satisfaction—
    ‘I desire you more acquaintance, but retain it—’ Hanina hears Shakespeare speaking from his throat.
    What’s that? asks the startled Moran, and Hanina explains:
    ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. And Shakespeare translates silently: ‘I want to fuck you, but I’m controlling myself.’
    So what are we going to decide? Mona presses them.

17
    What are we going to do, asks Hanina, and Melissa stands in front of him dressed in old jeans and a sloppy white T-shirt, holding a wooden spoon and stirring the wine simmering on the electric plate which glows with an infrared light. With her other hand she sprinkles nutmeg into the steaming punch, which gives off intoxicating scents of cloves and cinnamon, and her eyes look straight into his, and she says to him for the first time, with utter simplicity:
    You know, my secret nameless friend, I’m gonna miss you.
    Speak to her, the scriptwriter urges him, I’ve written you a dialogue with her. Tell her who you are at last. Give her a name to hang onto.