The Long Highway Pt. 23

from Akemi to Nelson

Hiroko translated

"Wolfman and Hero"

I thought someone was following me in the street, a big man who sometimes appeared. He was in our neighborhood but I don't think he was from it, maybe worked nearby. I saw him only in the daytime and more and more often. First, twice in two weeks, then once every four or five days, lately almost daily.

You came over to keep me company. I was in my sunlit apartment when you stopped by. You said I looked like a model in a photograph the way I sat on the sofa with one knee raised, lifting the hem of my skirt- it had a fringe- leaning on my arms behind me. You said I looked appealingly defenseless with my arms out of the way, looking at you, my breasts projecting at you.

You had work to do that Saturday like my husband but you'd taken the day off, recovering from Covid. You were over it but called in to work- the film cooperative showing your movies- to say you needed another day away- to come see me!

You were like a hero. You said I couldn't catch Covid from you because you didn't have symptoms any more, and I didn't care. I was so glad to see you!

You explained that you had brought some things from the coop to your place and been unable to return them when you got Covid. People in the office told you it was okay to wait longer, there was no hurry. You showed me one of the things, a high quality video camera. You thought you could catch the stalker, also thought we might use it together for fun, to forget that.

You arrived in early afternoon and we went out together and you said, "If I'm with you he won't bother you." I'd told you about the stranger who looked at me like we knew each other, with something between friendliness and anger, sometimes with a faint smile but a cold one I sensed malice behind, like he had a score to settle.

My husband wasn't around. I would have walked alone that day if not for you, been vulnerable. My husband has his job. He couldn't be my bodyguard every moment. I was on my own when I went to and from the studio to paint or went shopping, for example.

We looked around and didn't see him but he might have been there watching us, maybe angry you were with me, depriving him of the chance to stand in my path as usual.

You called him "the wolfman" because you'd seen Hiroko's dog I was taking care of, which looked like a wolf. You weren't making fun of my feelings but trying to make me feel better.

He was like a brick wall, had no expression- his mouth might smile but his eyes never did- I don't know what he was thinking or why. He had a mouth that looked like it could slaver like a wolf's.

He just stood and looked. So different from the surroundings, trees with their branches spreading in the spaces between buildings as if pointing to the open sky, white and blue there. He looked like he didn't care about the seasons, like he wasn't from that place or time but from all places and times, yet he was present, solid as the brick of the buildings.

We came home and in your excitement about protecting me and the danger you made love very strongly, stretched me wide open with your big thick thing, all the way open around it, and you fit your hands around both curves of my bottom and pulled me onto you again and again, moved my hips with you so hard the flesh flattened and your thing seemed to drive all the way up my spine.

Hiroko's father works for a car company and used to talk about power, turbocharging  and overdrive, achieving "high performance" using less energy. You and I did.

We had the kind of sex that goes beyond lovemaking, like a machine reaching its peak of momentum and not stopping- you think  all the parts might come flying off from the dynamic action, but they mesh and it becomes more than itself, as if some outer force has taken over and lifted it into a state of sublime ease.

Of course you and I are not a machine, but you understand, I hope. Together in bed when we're really energized, past foreplay, past the build-up, we are more than we are and also less. I lose who I am and you lose you, but we gain us. You know! We don't even feel the energy we're exerting because mine is yours and yours mine. Pleasure cancels everything except the love for each other creating it.

I sometimes feel this way when painting, but that's not the same! Do you understand? I know you do! We hardly feel our bodies because we are what they're doing. They're us and we don't focus on ourselves but on getting to know each other inside and out. In sex we really aren't selfish. You get pleasure from lavishing your erection in me and I get it too. We give and get. You make me convulse from it.

We don't get tired no matter how long we continue, though our bodies will be afterward. It's the kind of lovemaking that brings feelings and thoughts together, love and loyalty and everything else pulled to the black hole- mine you're in that pulls you. We ride the gravity between us, lifted into ease. Effort might be visible to someone watching us but we don't feel any.

It's the kind of sex when we don't care who knows about us- we might have started out thinking "What happens if someone finds out" but that thought is gone with all the rest. There's no thought, just joy your thing gives me. I flex on it. Your joy is a spring in me and we give it back and forth. I give you me, cover you with me, ride with you. Where your hands end and mine begin I don't know. How deep you're in me I don't know.

If other people spent the night in the same house as us but didn't know what happened (they might sense our connection even though we aren't a couple, and maybe they heard something from our room on the second floor) and they asked in the kitchen the next morning whether we had a good sleep, you and I would just look at each other and laugh.

We go past the gentle, tender kind of lovemaking to a storm of energy in which there are no more thoughts or words, just energy that sustains once it starts until you finish, only our bodies and minds, wet sloshing, my wet and your cream, our open mouths and passion, moments that feel like forever, stronger than any rival or threat, stronger than right or wrong. 

Sometimes I wish you were here to protect me and more, and sometimes you are! It's so right it's wrong and so wrong it's right! You confuse me in a way I like!

--

There was a problem!  I had agreed to take care of Hiroko's dog while she was away for the weekend as a favor for her translating. And it was a big German Shepherd. And seeing us making love so passionately it might think you were attacking me and come to my defense. The dog might have been as great a danger to you as that man on the street might be to me.

You paused to reassure him, brought your face right up to his. Showing no fear would calm him, you thought.

You'd been told the dog was not one you could snuggle with but you did, braving the danger. The dog let you rub your face against its muzzle but didn't respond with a friendly welcome. It remained wary, may even have growled, too low to hear.

The dog was still watching when you came back to me. It saw you biting my breasts. But you didn't stop.

You could have put the dog in another room but didn't because you didn't want to wait. You were brave. It could have bitten your shoulder- or anywhere- or it could have gotten excited and wanted to rape me, like a wolfman.

You make me think such strange things! I get excited! I get orgasm! I want to put you in my mouth all the way!