The Long Highway Pt. 16

"Do you like true crime stories?"

"Yes."

"You're a pretty dark person."

"Am I?"

"That's my impression. There's nothing wrong with being dark."

"If you've lived through what I have," I thought.

But I haven't lived through anything so different from anyone else.

She was a colleague acquaintance I'd bumped into at the new library reading room. We'd stopped and exchanged pleasantries. She'd seen the book I was holding, which I'd come upon by chance on the shelves after failing to find one I wanted. "Testimonies and Letters from Concentration Camp Victims" was the title. It looked interesting, though I wasn't sure I could take it. A police story might have been better for me, escape entertainment.

I had gone to the library at the college to see the new reading room, new design, architecture. I ran into Akemi on the way, just outside the big glass doors, and she joined me to view the place. We were with someone else, a present student of mine, Japanese like her.

We three crossed the threshold and for a moment stood past the doorway, taking in the sunny space before us with all the blond wood furniture, the muted off-yellow carpeting, the openness, potted plants in view here and there enhancing the sense of welcome.

I addressed a comment to the guy and all of a sudden couldn't remember his name.

"But you see him every day," Akemi protested with good humor, a show of foot stamping indignation.

"I guess I'm tired," I said.

She told me his name but I didn't repeat it as I thought I might get it wrong. "Shichemi," she seemed to have said, and that didn't sound right.

"But you remember mine," Akemi persisted, irresistibly.

"Akemi," I said." Because yours is an interesting name."

That was true but of course not the real reason.

I tried to come up with another.

"And I've known you for longer." She was my student before.

"This room looks good," I said, changing the subject. It did, was bright. There were windows all around, looking onto green outside, trees bushes, some deciduous, others evergreen, pine needled branches seeming to press up against the wide panes. It almost resembled a Japanese setting, the kind shown in tourist guidebooks, living environments enmeshed in nature- of course you didn't really find many of those in Japan, except in museums, preserved. Or maybe they exist in the countryside. Akemi's family place is sure lovely like that.

"The problem," I said, "is that there's nowhere to hide."

Akemi gave me a look both curious, amused and sharp.

Trying not to sound defensive, I explained, "Anywhere you are here you can be seen from any angle." In that respect, the space created for reading, relaxing was like a Japanese office. They had that open format.

Before Akemi and I got together, when we'd just met and were taking each other's measure, I began looking at porn- even though I was still with Pam and we slept together sometimes. One site I came to was of a series, kind of like a reality television show that follows a group on their adventures in wild and exotic places. How did they afford that lifestyle? By net sales, of course.

The site had an index page, all luminous green, like a fecund pond in summer. It detailed the episodes. Scrolling down I noticed the word "Asian" highlighted. It described one of the characters and was clearly there for porn visitors interested in Asian women, as other words were certainly highlighted for people with fetishes for different types.

Of course I investigated, scrolled back up, looking for the very first episode featuring the Asian. I'd want- if I liked her- to miss nothing. I'm not sure if the one that opened when I clicked really was the first.

The series followed the group of friends and lovers but in that particular scene only one guy was with her, and how I envied him! On top. Her thighs gripped his waist, her hands his shoulders. She had a luscious, tropical body. Light complexioned. Her body shone silver, all curves. She was as tall as her partner, his match, though he was Western. She looked Chinese, for some reason I thought Singaporean. Classic- old-fashioned- "oriental" look, might have had her hair swept back on one side, held in place by an orchid- or hibiscus?- over her ear. Some comic-bookish version of a Far Eastern woman, but she was, after all, authentically Asian and beautiful, even if only by virtue of her youth (in her twenties, when everyone is). If you looked through the gloss of performance, the mask kept in place for an audience a real person was there with her own unique beauty, character, etc.