The Long Highway Pt. 22B

During the period Akemi and I were separate I continued taking Japanese language classes. The teacher was someone I knew through Akemi. I knew she knew of my feelings for her but wasn't sure if she knew I knew.

We talked about what level class I should be in. The truth was, I wasn't making much progress. The teacher didn't want to state that plainly to me, meant to spare my feelings. You don't start learning a language so different from your own in your late thirties, not if you hope to become any good in it.

My thought was to just keep some skin in the game.

The teacher, in her early thirties or late twenties, began a class about how to order in a Japanese restaurant, and I took the opportunity to talk about Akemi, couldn't help myself.

"I know a family," I said.

"Oh really?" said the teacher, whom we addressed as "Sensei."

"They're very interesting."

Did Sensei know I was talking about Akemi's?

"They're all artistic, including my friend. Her sister is very creative and her husband, my friend's brother-in-law, is a ballet dancer. My friend herself is a painter." Akemi, I meant, of course.

My description couldn't continue. It distracted from the class.

I found the teacher attractive. She's from Akemi's country, after all. I liked her dense black hair and her very womanly expression, profoundly serious and fun at once. In her face you could see the range of her character. I saw how rich it would be to get to know her, how much there was to know, the heights and depths, the free fall, the delight, the light and dark. I get carried away thinking about it, but of course my focus was Akemi. At the time I reminded myself, worked on convincing myself, there were other women out there as wonderful in their own way as her. Sensei was one, but she didn't draw my attention away from Akemi. Only in the classroom did she have it. Well, almost only. Sure I sometimes thought of her outside too.

Remember, this was the period when I was trying to break up with my former girlfriend Pam. That project was the purpose of the hiatus from Akemi. Rough times.

Even during the Japanese restaurant lesson I thought of making love to Akemi, both of us lying flat with me on top. First I'd shuttle back and forth as she stayed still, letting me enter her. A while would pass before she'd fully engage the action, raise her thighs and move with me, we'd move together as one.

I talked to Akemi last night, remembering those times, rough ones for sure when we were apart. Things are fairly easy for us now, and I'm grateful, considering how badly off much of the world has it. There was another earthquake in Akemi's country followed by landslides; hundreds of thousands had to evacuate and don't know where they're going next, and that's just the part of the world not at war. Following the news of conflict overseas, it's hard to sustain hope in mankind, hard for that matter to tell sometimes which side you're watching in news conferences. Both wear the same grim expressions- except representatives of the dominant army sometimes smile as they describe the revenge they're exacting- which seems wrong, given how many civilians are being killed.

The U.S. Secretary of State is visiting the area. You wonder how he stays away from harm. Even in the safe zone where he's speaking war planes are visible in the sky at a distance, and they're bent on destruction.

from Akemi to Nelson

Hiroko translated

I like the moving image you sent. It's both fierce and tender.

I'd like to teach you Japanese. I'd come to your chair and lower between your opened knees. I'd play with your balls dangling in that space. My hand would hold them from below gently and I'd bring my mouth over your thing fiercely like in the moving image.

It's standing and glowing, tall and wet, like a mountain I'm climbing, hard as if covered in frost.

You watch from above, hold your shaft in a casual way to guide the top through my lips that stretch smooth to take it again and again, make you more and more wet.

I get excited like I'm making a fire at the top of a mountain, like I'm dancing around the flame.

I want to see you more. I want to show you more.

I get orgasm.