The Long Highway Pt. 38

"An Artist, Professional"

They were at the hotel where his films would be shown later in the banquet hall and Akemi came to Nelson unexpectedly and said, "I'm going to get ready to perform a sex act on you and in the meantime I want you to just wait."

She didn't want him to take any action, try to find out what her plan was.

He thought she must have gotten it from online. The language wasn't natural. No one, least of all a Japanese woman, would spontaneously come out with that.

He was curious but accepted her request, waited. She left, promising to return shortly, walked through the blond door.

By "perform a sex act," he thought she must mean blow job. What else could it be? He looked forward. He also noted that the pleasure would be one-sided. Akemi got excited when she went down on him, called out. But only he had an orgasm. He decided to think later about that. For now his focus was on the blowjob. Akemi's behavior, her announcement suggested she wanted this to be her production and that if he reciprocated he should wait for another time. That was fine with Nelson. He relished the thought of coming, feeling the cool air on his wet cock, giving all of himself to coming without any thought or other distraction, Akemi's beauty urging him forward.

They went to a room on the second floor, close to the balcony overlooking the banquet hall. Akemi had arranged that. In the room, glancing at the inside of the blond wood door, the rich dark grain of the wood, Nelson noted that they'd have to pay for a full day's stay. He didn't care. This was worth it.

He told Akemi he had to use the bathroom first (was that where she had gone when she left before?) It occurred to him that he should let the tip of his penis dry off after urinating and made conversation to pass the time. Akemi seemed not to mind, was in no hurry, although her hand was already laving his pants front. With her extended fingers she applied a gentle salving motion; light, it had a sharp effect by virtue of its persistence. Cumulative.

Nelson talked about food. The subject naturally came up because Akemi was about to use her mouth. She said that for dinner before the film they might have "katsudon," Japanese breaded and deep-fried pork cutlet over rice. Did he know it? Nelson said that he did but wasn't in the mood for the dish. "Too oily." He made a face, then laughed but made clear he was serious.

Akemi noticed how he didn't go out of his way to appease her emotions. A Japanese person recommended something by a friend would hesitate to reject it outright, would at least find words to soften the impact, show appreciation of the other person's effort, maybe even talk in circles a little to soothe their feelings. Nelson did nothing like that, just said what was on his mind. Had he been anyone else, she reflected, she might have hated this but in Nelson's case she actually liked it. He was like an incorrigible boy. Even his selfishness attracted her.

She said they could have pizza. It was on the menu in the hotel dining room. Nelson said he would like that and he smiled in a way that showed his pleasure at the idea that put katsudon totally out of his thoughts, replacing it with the image of dark red tomato sauce, the circular flat pie, the partly charred crust buckled in places. Akemi had a way of making him feel good about the world, shaking his vision away from views of bad stuff that, once seen, sometimes seemed impossible to put out of mind.

Nelson told a story. He had two cats at home and one day it occurred to him he hadn't seen either recently. He asked his wife Leticia if they were all right and before she answered he saw one underfoot. The orange tiger was there. Both had been all along, of course, but he just hadn't been noticing. Next, he advanced toward the other, on the windowsill where it sat contentedly by a potted plant.

"Black, mostly black," Nelson said. It mattered to him that Akemi could see exactly what he described and she felt flattered.

"Eighty percent black and twenty percent white about. Long furred. Female."

He described the pet in some detail, while recalling the moment enthused about how beautiful she was. Was he the type who liked animals more than people because they more dependably subordinated themselves to him?

It had appeared wary of his approach, like it didn't want to be bothered, but he couldn't resist and picked it up in his arms, pretty much against its will, and carried it to a chair- "Dark brown upholstered armchair. Covered by a dark brown cloth. Do you remember?"- and sat there and held the cat. Even though it might have wanted to escape, it tolerated his embrace for the moment. And he proceeded to kiss it

"Again and again, everywhere, and she didn't try to leave. I kept kissing, her neck for example, ha ha. And though she didn't exactly relax, she accepted it. And I said, 'I think you're enjoying this.'"

Was he telling Akemi so much about the "sleek-furred" cat as a prelude to kissing her pussy later?

Nelson laughed at the memory. He was a man much amused by his own stories.

He talked of his effort to put his pet at her ease.

"You wouldn't have to do that with me," Akemi said, and Nelson looked at her approvingly and brushed hair away from her brow, as if to let her better look at him.

"I know," he said in a near whisper which came out as a growl that showed his feeling.

Though there was no need, Nelson kept taking. He liked hearing himself speak and making others listen and was in no hurry, liked building anticipation of what they would do in the hour or however long they stayed in the room on the white bedspread they relaxed atop. How pristine it was, undisturbed now beneath them.

Nelson even asked about Akemi's husband, at a time like this! How was his teaching going? He's working today, isn't he? Akemi obliged by telling Nelson about problems Mitchell had been having at work, stuff involving students, difficulty communicating with them.

"He says there's a blurred line between him and them. Sometimes he can't see distinctly who's who or what they want or expect. He said it's like there's a gel on the lens he's looking through at the class."

Nelson could definitely be thoughtless and insensitive, she saw but didn't care, at least not for now, in the limited context of their relationship. In fact it made her want him more.

Nelson saw a look on Akemi's face of both confusion and amusement and that she was blushing.

She raised a hand as if to stop him from asking a question, like pausing someone about to interrupt her while swallowing something.

"Sometimes I don't understand you," she said frankly and laughed.

Nelson waited for her to explain and the silence embarrassed her and she apologized.

"Sometimes I don't understand myself," she conceded.

"I can help with that." He petted her hair with long strokes of his hand, while Akemi stopped hers. Instead of lavishing more caresses to his pants- a rugged hard cotton, mustard colored- she set about opening them, even as Nelson continued caressing her hair, her cheek. Conversation stopped.

He wouldn't interrupt her swallowing.

(In fact, Mitchell didn't hate all aspects of his job. Recently a student had told him he thought he was new at it and enjoying the work as a beginner- there's a Japanese word that fits, "shoshin" 初心, for beginner's mind. Mitchell disabused him of that notion. "Actually, I've been doing it a while, but I still get pleasure from it because of students like you." In truth, he liked his students- not all. It was, of course, at the college that he'd met Akemi.

By the way, work wasn't the only setting where he had trouble communicating. Sometimes problems arose between Akemi's friends and him. Cultural and language barriers heaved into view. Just the other day things looked bad for a moment. Several of Akemi's friends had arrived on a visit from their country. She and Mitchell met them in the lobby of the midtown hostel where they would stay. As the travelers managed their reservation at the front desk, Mitchell accidentally spilled water from a bottle he was carrying onto the floor beside their luggage left there in a pile. They justifiably took Mitchell to task, one approaching for a showdown, standing over the luggage, which was, like their outfits and hair, black (soft leather or imitation). When Mitchell explained the mishap and pointed out that no damage would result, the spokesman and the others immediately forgave him and offered genuinely felt friendship.

Akemi's friends sometimes initially misunderstood but generally ended up liking Mitchell.

She liked going down on Nelson's penis because it was long though he was short- shorter than Mitchell but his penis was longer and she liked exploring it and seeing how far she could take it in her mouth, challenging herself and showing Nelson, and he could see that and petted her head approvingly.

Her mouth built wet on his hardness and traveled smoothly.

"Good," Nelson said. "So good."

And she gave a gurgling wet reply.

This was Akemi's project and she was going to do it well, proudly, even professionally. ("I'm going to perform a sex act on you").

An art work. She painted his cock with her tongue. No, she didn't have to feel in the wrong about Mitchell- or even think of him. This was totally different from what they had, which was domestic, a marriage. No relation.

After all, Nelson had a wife and he wasn't letting that bother him, clearly.

They got beyond thought, past language, to silent oblivion, from which sounds came naturally.

She'd like pulling his pants down and fondling his balls before even addressing his penis, lightly working her fingers round and round (professionally?) seeing, feeling his reaction.

She hadn't even started with his penis. She'd first kissed his chest, his pelvis.

It was so long!

He said her mouth looked like a jewel. He praised her. She wore lipstick that made it sparkle.

She wanted to make him burn, to feel his fire in her, oblivion, obliterating.

!.!.!

Akemi began to moan, call out, gasp before his feelings found voice, which they did finally through groans. He said, "Whoah!" like he was on a roller coaster that had taken serious surprising falls and turns. He bellowed.

Nelson paused it. They didn't want to finish soon. He rose to his knees to let Akemi suck him straight on, from a crouch, seated Indian style, at her leisure, at his. After all, they had the room, and the film showing wasn't till that night.

He was showing a work about this country, largely abstract cinema that impressed her. He'd expounded to her about native Americans who cared for the land before the Europeans arrived to despoil it, waxed eloquent on the spirituality of those who came before the White man. Speaking thus, he'd watched her intently to see if she was listening and understood. She'd felt like a student being tested, and she'd liked the feeling. She revered the artist who had acquired a coterie of followers as a guru might. She thought it an honor that he'd allow her to sit at his feet.

From above he watched her black hair, Japanese but shiny like an American Indian's, "a squaw," he thought. His family was among those settlers who'd come and conquered the West, as he was now conquering Akemi, her mouth at least, spirit too.

He rested his hands on and pressed her smooth brown shoulders as they neared him again and again and rolled, as if trying to shake his hands away but really just intent on giving all of herself to him, all out, urgently, native modesty aside, to the back of her throat.

Her hair gleamed as it would soon with flecks of his semen.

"No hurry," he said with his motion, punctuated by her smacking sounds.

After all, they'd paid for the whole day.

Nothing mattered outside these moments happening now and nothing mattered more. It was light fun but powerfully serious.

They paused sometimes, took breathers. And he stayed hard, which turned Akemi on. She flicked the tip with her tongue, playfully but ever more seriously.

And when Nelson came it was so powerful she didn't want to come off him, go back to her domestic life. And she held on, while he held her close, understanding her, she felt, her body at least, her spirit too, through her mouth.

She admired him as someone above domestic life, an artist, and she wanted to be worthy of him. It was important to her that she be part of that, an artist, professional.