Seven Days of Solitude

Aimi laughed. "Seems like all that hard cock I've had tonight has deflated you, darling."

I guess so," he said looking away.

At that moment the electric fan they used for white noise came on.

"You've got forty seconds left," Aimi said flatly.

Jeremy lifted his pelvis to his wife's hand then thrust in short jabs the very same way he'd seen Edward thrust into his wife earlier. But, he thickened only minimally.

"Your time is up. I told you sixty seconds and it's over." She let go of his flaccid penis and looked him in the eyes.

"That was my Aunt Jules. I never hear from her. She told me that you need to tell the truth. Have you been playing with yourself? You know you're in chastity. Why'd she'd say that?"

Jeremy shook his head. "No, I haven't touched myself," he said, softly.

Aimi grinned, "Of course not. I'm the only one with affairs to hide. You must be tired. Kiss me on the cheek, darling. My lips are sore."

@@@@@

Jeremy could fix things. He took pride in the functioning upkeep of Aimi and his home. Doors didn't stick, locks didn't jam, facets didn't leak, drains drained, air filters got changed, water damaged soffit got replaced as did damaged shingles, broken tiles, and batteries in smoke detectors.

When something wasn't working, Aimi would simply call out from wherever she was in the house, "The coffee maker is overflowing again," and the next day the appliance, device, fixture, hinge, lock, handle, outlet, floorboard, stain, crack would be mended, fitted, cleaned, and presented as if it were new.

And Jeremy had a chivalrous streak. He opened doors for women, carried their grocery bags, put the toilet seat down, pulled over to help with flats, gave away his umbrella or coat, walked on the street side of the sidewalk, and once carried Aimi in his arms over a mud puddle.

When asked what she loved most about her husband, Aimi said, without hesitation, "He fixes things." She'd often go on to tell the story of how they'd come home one evening to find the water heater broken and a good portion of the house flooded.

By that Friday evening when Aimi retuned from her afternoon with Joseph, Jeremy had replaced the damaged floorboards and installed a new water heater.

"There's nothing like the security of a man who fixes things, Aimi once exclaimed to a girlfriend who was astonished that Aimi's husband remained with her despite her long, well-known affair with Joseph.

But the bedroom fan was a problem Jeremy couldn't resolve. He thought the trouble must have been a defective on- off switch, but after taking it apart and putting it back together twice, the problem of its randomly turning on remained.

Aimi reminded him that the fan's strangeness was just one of the ways her family communicated with her.

"Thank you for trying, but there's nothing to fix. If you don't believe me, unplug it. It will still come on when my mother has something to say to me."

@@@@@

On Monday, Edward called Aimi on her way home from work. He did the same the next night, and the next night.

That Friday night, they had a date at a sushi restaurant. In the middle of dinner, she texted Jeremy:

It's nice to be out at a Sushi restaurant with a man who doesn't ask for a fork.

While Jeremy could fix things he'd never learned to use chopsticks, even though Aimi was half-Japanese and insisted on sushi at least once a week.

A half-hour later, she texted him that Edward travelled to Japan two or three times a year. Jeremy sensed the excitement in her words.

He knew she'd be making love to him that night.

The thought stabbed him in a way that surprised him. He'd hoped she'd changed. He'd given her a ring he thought might help her contain her need, but his wife needed a lover. He was back facing his fate, but the reality disrupted a level of comfort and security he'd developed since Joseph had died.

He went out the front door of their house intending to take a long solitary walk. Instead he found the street lined with flickering candelabras that led to a large wedding party celebration at the park three blocks away.

A band played. People danced, whooped and hollered and staggered about, obviously intoxicated. The mood caught him. He stopped for a moment, watched and swayed with the music. Three large yellow fireworks went off overhead which he thought originated from the shore near the wedding party, but he couldn't be sure.

Jeremy would later ask Aimi if she happened to be making love at midnight when the fireworks went off. "No," she said, "I was peeing at midnight."

Jeremy fixed his attention on the wedding party. The bride shook her bottom at the groom and then at the groomsmen who lifted their faces up to the sky, pumped the air with their fists and howled like wolves. The crepe myrtles bent, their petals heavy with dew, falling and decorating the grass. The flames of the tiki touches danced, tree limbs bounced in gusts, lightning flashed illuminating clouds to the south. The band's volume and tempo increased as if to outdo the coming storm.

Jeremy turned into the wind, away from the wedding reception, toward silence and thought he'd always been in love, that love was his condition, that it didn't matter if his wife had a lover; that reality was one of many realities that didn't affect his condition, which was love, love now, love then, love always.

@@@@@

As he walked, Jeremy recalled a trip Aimi and he had made along the Mississippi River. They'd stopped at a state park and rented a cabin.

The next morning, he awoke before Aimi and watched his breath form little clouds of fog as he exhaled. He pulled up the covers and wrapped his around her belly and kissed the back of her neck. She arched back, awakened, as if tickled and leaned away escaping his kisses.

"Bring me coffee," she said stretching and turning to him her eyes half-closed.

Jeremy hurriedly dressed and went out. He walked the 200 yards to the car, opened the driver's door and realized the nearest rest stop where he could get coffee was 30 miles away. He shut the door, glad to stay and stood facing the woods by the river, listening to the wind caress the leaves of maple and sycamore trees. He walked back to Aimi who he found leaning on the doorway of the cabin.

The day before they'd stood on a bluff near Hannibal, looking down at the river. Though it was August, the air felt cool, chilled, as if it was actually spring. Jeremy stood behind Aimi and put his hand on her shoulder and could feel the sturdiness of her body with that one touch, and he could feel her smile. In that moment, he knew she knew the world best through contact and touch. She understood with her fingers and others' touch. Her words were an amalgam of sensation disjointed, illogical, but vibrating out from her to get a feel, a physical response from the world around her.

That was his wife, she wanted to touch and be touched. And when she decided to sleep with a man, when she opened her front door, there was no distance she wouldn't travel, no mountain peak she wouldn't scale, no virtue she wouldn't discard to satisfy that desire. Jeremy loved her body, her fingertips, her nipples, the softness in her half-closed droopy eyes when he was inside her and she emptied him with a sigh or a groan. She loved his body too, she loved his kiss, his thighs, the small of his back, his somewhat long nose, and the scar on his lower abdomen where he'd had hernia surgery when he was a young athlete. But his wife's door was always open for other men, the right men, and for the right men, Jeremy had no key or latch to lock that door. As satisfying as it was, as much as it hardened him to know this was the truth about his wife, he knew it wasn't right and he realized that what he desired he despised, and, that there was no escape, his love was a hollow trough of happiness, a sham that was the best he had to offer.

Aimi grinned at him from the doorway of their cabin and told him to strip. He did and stood naked before her while she gazed at him, amused at the ease at which she could move him. He grew long as she watched him, which prompted her to walk to him. She got behind him, bent over and took his thickness in hand and began a steady rhythm of strokes.

"Let's see if you can aim it onto that big leaf." she said

In moments it was over though he hadn't succeeded in hitting the target she'd identified.

@@@@@

Aimi arrived home at 3am, exhausted. "I know you want to hear everything, darling, but that's not possible. It was too much. If you want to rub your cock against my thigh and cum that way, go ahead. But I've had plenty of sex for the night."

The next evening, they had dinner with Edward and Darlene. Edward said he'd been looking for a lover like Aimi for five years. He spoke with authority. His prior softness had disappeared. Darlene smiled at Jeremy as her husband spoke, the wrinkles in her face lizardly, but her eyes sparkled with a luminescence that reminded Jeremy of violets in a field.

"Jeremy," Edward barked. "Aimi has told me about your cuckold fantasies. She says you're a sexual submissive. That you enjoy being humiliated. Is that true?"

He spoke with such a reassuring authenticity and superiority that Jeremy felt a confused mix of pleasure and rage, of invitation and rejection.

Before Jeremy could answer, Edward, who often interrupted himself, turned and pointed to a painting of a herd of bulls, all in full tumescence being lead over a cliff by three blond-haired women wearing cowboy hats and sitting upright on horseback.

Edward stared, pointed and asked, "Do you know the cure for temptation?"

"Core strength," he said, as he stood up then dropped to his hands and knees and pushed himself up into a push-up position. He demonstrated the position for several moments before turning, lifting one arm while maintaining his balance and explained how ancient yogis held plank position for 10 minutes every day, which helped to maintain an even level of the body's yellow fluids, which helped people avoid gluttony.

"Jeremy," he said, "will you submit to me?"

"I submit to my wife." Jeremy replied sheepishly, still examining the painting, but closing his eyes for several moments, inhaling slowly, before turning to Edward.

"I submit to my wife unconditionally," he went on, in a distant mechanical voice that countered Edwards bravado.

"I worship the ground she walks on. I'm nothing without her."

Edward ignored his response. And went on.

"I've always wanted a man to submit to me, to kneel in front of me, take my cock out of my pants and suck me until I cum in his mouth. It's my fantasy. Will you do that? Will you let me use your mouth like I use your wife's cunt?"

Jeremy shook his head and returned his gaze to the painting. "I submit to my wife as I said," he replied flatly.

Everyone was silent trying to identify who was being persecuted and who needed to be rescued.

Finally Aimi spoke, "You men are always fighting about being on top. The world would be a much more peaceful place if women ran things."

Just then the ice cubes tinkled in each of their water glasses for 15 seconds.

Edward grinned. "Was that an earthquake? I didn't feel the ground shake."

"No," Aimi said, "It was my mother. She says women do rule the world, they simply have yet to realize it. That if we could see the world from her perspective, we'd know that men are our children and they're always either running from us or toward us."

"Stand up Jeremy." Edward said, ignoring Aimi.

"Why?"

"I want to see if you're cock is hard."

Jeremy looked at Aimi.

"Do as he says," she said like a middle school girl excited to initiate a drama at which she'd be the center.

"Touch him Aimi and tell me if he's got a woody for my fantasy."

"Yep. He's hard. Unlike the other night."

Jeremy burned as if Edward had begun turning him over a fire from which he couldn't escape. Soon he'd be kneeling before him, broken yet rock hard in his wife's intransigent humiliation.

He sat back down. Edward leaned back in his chair, grinning smugly and resting his hand on Aimi's thigh.

Another long silence ensued that seemed to absorb the hostility. Aimi spoke up.

"My husband fixes things. He's repaired everything in the house at least once."

"That's a talent I certainly lack." Edward said, nodding at Jeremy.

A normalcy returned to their conversation. For the next hour they told stories about their past; stories about their various sexual experiences with an openness that grew more and more animated and comfortable as they spoke.

Toward the end of the evening Edward looked at Jeremy and cocked his head gently. "I'm going to Japan for a week at the end of the month and I'm going to take your wife."

Jeremy gulped, surprised and looked at Aimi who was grinning as if she knew this dictum was the whole point of the evening.

"What will we tell our family? We see them every weekend. You can't just disappear," Jeremy said.

"Edward's taken care of that." Aimi spoke avoiding eye contact with Jeremy.

Edward said. "She can tell them she's been asked to meet with company representatives about publishing her book in Japanese."

"Yeah," Jeremy said, feeling a bit righteous. "But we don't lie. Especially to family."

"It won't be a lie."

"You've actually set up an appointment for her?" Jeremy asked.

"I have."

"With who?"

"With me, Jeremy. I'm an editor. We're expanding our office in Japan. We need new titles."

As if reading his mind, Edward spoke.

"I realize this is a big step. Aimi has told me your fantasies are one thing. I know it's just been a week since I met her, but I adore your wife. We have the kind of chemistry I think you and she once had."

"We still have it." Jeremy said standing up suddenly..

He nodded, with a warm smile. "Sit down, Jeremy. Of course, you do. Of course, you do."

@@@@@

Aimi was gone for seven consecutive days. She called Jeremy every day in the evening, her morning.

They talked about the places she'd visited, the waterfront sushi bars in Odaiba, the Senso-ji Temple, and the Uneo Zoo, where Edward had taken a picture of her in such a way that made it look as if she was hugging a panda.

"I wish you were here and we could share this together," she said when she called the first night.

Jeremy relished the wire of melancholy in her voice. He missed his wife. Her longing, or at least his assumption that she was longing, relieved him of a dreadful sense of loss he'd felt since he'd waved to her as she started through security at the airport. "One day we'll go together," he said, knowing the chances they'd actually do that were slim.

For several minutes, neither could think of what to ask or say.

Finally, Aimi spoke. "I don't like that you've always pushed me in this direction, that you let me go, that my affair with other men turns you on. You're supposed to be a man and hate the idea of me fucking other men. It's your job to stop me, not encourage me. I want a man who wants a pure wife. I want to be his pure wife until I decide I don't. You're the one out of order. I'm not out of order. A good husband keeps his wife, holds her in his arms so she never leaves. He doesn't release her. He pursues her to the ends of the earth with an aching heart and a stiff cock. A real man's heart breaks when he learns his wife has been with another man. Now here I am in this beautiful city, in this exotic country and I'm with a stranger."

"I miss you," he said. "I can't control what excites me. I'm sorry I'm not the kind of man you want. That's the story of my life. I disappoint."

When Jeremy hung up, he turned to the television. The president was saying he'd heard, and had no reason not to believe what he'd heard, that for the last 35 years liberals had been registering Martians to vote in the northeast states. This, he said, was very unfair but wasn't the only reason he'd needed to issue an executive order to impeach the results of the last election which he lost by 12 points.

"Liberals are now, as I speak, opening clinics where anyone can take an unwanted child and have it murdered. It's wrong. It's got to stop and I alone am the only man who can restore this country to greatness."

@@@@@

The several nights later, Aimi sounded upbeat describing in detail how that morning they watched a heron pluck the baseball cap off of an American tourist as they sat on a bench by the Imperial Palace. She spoke of the plumage of a duck Jeremy had never heard of and said that she herself had floated for a few moments after her shower in the morning, convinced that the love of two men had left her feeling so lifted that she thought she might be capable of flight.

"My feet left the ground," she said, then added, "But I'm glad we have separate rooms. That's made it easier."

"You sound happier." Jeremy replied, feeling grounded.

"I am," she said. "Much happier. I'm sorry I said what I said the other night. I've always needed another man in my life. That way, when you disappoint me, I have him. And when he disappoints me, I have you. So, I'm never disappointed for long. I just switch men. Why should I be limited to one man? My vagina can adjust. Edward fits beautifully. He's told me when a man fits so well, the woman's fluids become sweeter and our scents become fruity like apricot juice.

She went on to tell Jeremy he'd licked her to multiple orgasms every night they'd been in Tokyo and that she'd never felt so free of vaginal self-consciousness and that she couldn't wait for him to experience the new scent that Edward had evoked.

"I love you, darling. Thank you for setting me free." she said as she hung up.

Jeremy felt relieved. He turned on the television and the news came on.The leader of the Liberal National Election Committee was on the screen announcing that the party had decided that the party's next Presidential candidate must attest, in writing, that they were gender neutral.

When the feed broke back to the news set, the commentators sat in silence looking at the cameras. One started to speak then stopped.

"What's that mean?" one asked.

"It means he'll be able to use whatever bathroom he wants to use," the liberal commentator offered tepidly. "It's another step towards equality. Generally there are never enough stalls for women at theaters and stadiums so they have to wait in long lines until their bladders almost burst which causes UTIs. Woman having to hold it is a public health hazard. Now they'll be able to use the men's stalls which are only used by anxious men who can't pee in front of other men."

"Right," the conservative barked. "now the liberals are making laws so they can hear a women tinkle; yet they call the president a pervert. The kool aide the liberals drink gets stronger everyday."

@@@@@

Spring arrived the same day Aimi arrived home and she insisted Jeremy find a field of flowers where they could make love.

"You'll never know how much I've missed you, darling," she said in a voice slow, but dazzling with genuine endearment. "I want to lose myself in the taste of your kisses and close my eyes when you enter me."

That evening while lying under the stars, and several blankets that protected them from the bitterness of the long winter that still lingered, Aimi waited for Jeremy to initiate their lovemaking as if she were a shy, much younger inexperienced woman who hesitated, not for lack of desire but to contain too much desire.

"I'm so wet. Do you smell that sweet scent? That's me." Aimi said ginning while running an index finger along his forearm.

Jeremy lowered his face to her chest, cocked his head, and inhaled, but didn't detect anything sweeter than the bluebonnets and wet dirt.

"Look in my eyes," she said, "I have something to tell you."