The Long Highway Pt. 20E

You'll remember that at the beginning Akemi and I separated for some months. In the middle of your life, you don't often meet someone when the timing is just right for both of you. Past thirty, we're involved in stuff. I was with Pam and Akemi and I agreed we should take time apart for me to wind that relationship down. I couldn't just cut it off. Didn't have that in me. Nor, though, could I stay completely away from Akemi.

I tried to cool down some, not to be less in love with Akemi- that wasn't possible- but to gain some perspective. I told myself Akemi wasn't the only woman in the world who I could love if it came to that, there were other women just as wonderful as her, must be, I was deluded if I thought otherwise.

Trouble was, Akemi was the one and I knew it.

During those months, I focused on work, at the college took on projects beyond teaching, to get my mind off Akemi, to get some perspective, yes.

Not that it helped.

And now there's Nelson, who also seems a bit crazy, over the top about Akemi, Nelson and his projects including her. He's talking about them making videos together.

I'm actually not that surprised at Nelson's schemes. Strange things happen. Let me tell you about a surprise I once got. It was after we married. I googled the young guy who was going to take care of our place during the three months Akemi and I would be visiting Japan. I googled just as an afterthought- he seemed totally fine, student starting college- and found out he'd been in prison for a sex crime. It seemed to have been something fairly low on the scale of possible offenses, maybe downloading pornography including underage girls. He may not even have realized the girls he was looking at weren't yet eighteen. He was that artless. Still, he'd spent a year in a federal penitentiary.

He might have seen something different in my expression, attitude toward him, when he came over next time to finalize the sublet agreement.

"'What's going on?'" he asked, not flinching, addressing me forthrightly.

"I just didn't know you were in prison,"I said. It turned out he'd finished his sentence only a month earlier.

Akemi and I decided to sign him on anyway.

Life is strange. Some people turn out to be totally different than they appear, some not at all. The prospective sublet tenant seemed totally fine, clearly posed no danger. In fact, he was one of the most likable young people you'll ever come across. Open, cheerful. Yes, artless. His innocence itself might have led him to make the mistake.

So I'm not surprised Nelson wanted to use Akemi in his "art work," take photos, videotape her, even his talk about selling them (that sounded like a joke; he scorns commercialism, says he does at least)

"It isn't a crime," Akemi pointed out after I compared Nelson's behavior to the kid who got arrested for his.

"No, of course not." There was no comparison. We were all consenting adults, although I can't say I agreed to what my friend and former teacher had in mind for my wife and him.

Speaking of taking care of apartments (and mistakes), there was a really harrowing night during the months when Akemi and I were pledged not to meet until I'd wound down, ended my love affair with Pam. Yes, it proved impossible to stay entirely true to the pact. We met a few times. One day, I arranged a tryst, couldn't hold back. Akemi and I spoke on the phone and she revealed she'd be spending a night away from the roommate she lived with then, taking care of a friend's apartment while she was away. We agreed I'd come over. Of course we'd sleep together.

It was a weekday, a Wednesday, I think, during a week when I'd spent time with Pam, which had made me keenly miss Akemi, as I saw the difference between my feelings for the two very different women.

At the last moment I chickened out, felt I couldn't do that to Pam, couldn't betray her trust. I called Akemi's roommate Hiroko and invited her to join us. With her present, of course nothing could happen between Akemi and me.

The three of us sat on a couch together talking, cheerful, but my desire for Akemi came on strong. Seeing her, being with her, I felt more than I could deny. Akemi saw me looking at her long legs, slim, almost tubular- she wore shorts- and how I gazed at her face, saw my longing.

We talked of this and that. I wanted to speak about a painting I'd recently seen. They didn't know the artist, so I began talking about surrealism, which was related to his work. Did they know surrealism? Of course Akemi did. She's a painter. But neither she nor Hiroko seemed to understand. My pronunciation threw them, maybe. I saw our profound differences but didn't care any more than usual.

Finally my resolve broke down.

"I have an idea," I said.

"'What?" Akemi asked

"What about three together?"

She said no to my proposal from out of the blue. She couldn't keep adjusting to the dizzying reversals from me. She'd had enough emotional whiplash. First she'd agreed to the tryst. Then I'd blocked it by asking her roommate along. Now this. If I couldn't make up my mind, she would hers. And she did.

Why not join Akemi and Hiroko, who I also liked though not in the same way, not as crazily. It could be a threesome, I thought. That would be fine. Just so long as I stayed that night with Akemi.

I knew there'd be no more chances soon, maybe not ever. Life works that way. Facing my rejection, Akemi might withdraw. Oh god, how beautiful her long legs, how affecting her face, so deeply lovely- beyond loveliness, reaching the core of my humanity, my life as a man.

Of course she shook her head, expressing no anger but wanting no pain.