The Long Highway Pt. 40

Akemi worried Mitchell would be up and possibly even out on the street when they arrived in Nelson's car. She didn't voice this concern but Nelson could see it on her face. He stroked the hair that fell on the right side, easing it out of the way so they could look at each other, as he had more than once before.

"We'll deal with whatever comes up," he said in his deep baritone, his morning voice.

The response of Akemi's husband Mitchell clearly did not worry him much. Mitchell was his friend but also former student. Their relationship of senior and junior persisted. Mitchell still respected his authority and would probably accept any excuse for Akemi staying out overnight in his company. He wouldn't even have to lie. The post-screening socializing had gone on longer than expected and Akemi had decided not to come home late and bother Mitchell, who needed sleep for work the next day. Saying that would suffice. Mitchell wouldn't mount a challenge, question the man who had taught him at college way back when and offered him counsel as a friend in the years afterward. He'd trust his vague account or at least keep any doubts to himself.

Nelson took the scenic route as he had the night before but this time didn't stop at the overlook. The mood of night had gone and workaday reality, bracing daylight revealed the world beyond the intimate space they shared.

Akemi wondered aloud if she should leave Nelson's car a few blocks away from home to avoid the risk of Nelson running into them in front of the apartment building.

Nelson said he wouldn't hear of it, they had nothing to hide, and anyway Mitchell would have no idea how she and he had spent the time she'd been away from him. Mitchell had trusted them together and still did.

Akemi, like her husband, found it difficult to challenge Nelson. He was so strong, sure of himself, seemed likely to respond angrily or at least ridicule anyone who didn't take his suggestions as law.

He parked on the curb catty-corner to the apartment building where Akemi and Nelson rented their apartment. Before Akemi got out, she and Nelson kissed. He got his hand inside her jeans again, as he had on their drive before returning to the hotel.That had been dangerous, ran the risk of an accident. This was physically safe but risky in other ways. What if Mitchell saw them? It was about time for him to leave for his morning commute. On his way to the station where he'd get a train to the college, he might walk right past the car?

Akemi eased her mind with the thought that even if Mitchell did spot her and Nelson, he might not notice. Seeing them there was the last thing he'd be expecting and people usually don't pay attention to the world outside the scope of their imagination. In fact, he might not even recognize her and Nelson. He'd see a couple embracing, Asian woman and a man who seemed to be Western. He'd see her black hair and probably not look further, never imagining that might be his wife.

They kissed and Akemi sucked Nelson's tongue again, finding it assuring as ever. It made nothing else matter.

Akemi called Mitchell when she got in the apartment, which was empty, reached Mitchell at work. Of course he had left earlier.

"Can you hear the bird?" she asked. It was loud, calling at intervals, almost interrupting the conversation. Akemi wanted to bring Mitchell's attention to the sound, as if it proved she was where she said she was, not lying.

The conversation was short, Mitchell busy as usual at his job, even on a Saturday morning. He hadn't asked where Akemi had been overnight.

Putting down the phone, she went to the rear window to look at the noisy bird. It was on a tree in back, big, white and still calling.

And so was a cat, a kitten, perched on a branch, precariously, in danger. Akemi helped it in through the window. It just barely made it without falling.

The cat might have heard the sound of the bird and been so attracted it leapt without thinking of the risk. Akemi saw that was in effect what she'd done with Nelson, been so attracted to the big man calling she'd jumped into open space.

She could have fallen far, still might.

The cat was grey- no, black and white- fluffily furred, ironically, as Nelson had described his.

Now there was a cat, a new member of the household. What would Mitchell say when he saw it and Akemi explained? He'd have to be impressed, anyway, that she'd done a good deed, saved the animal. Or maybe it wouldn't stay, this was only a visit.

The kitten was small enough to easily get lost underfoot, venture out of sight and mind. Akemi had other things on hers. She forgot all about the creature for the time being.

Meanwhile, Mitchell, curious, had phoned Nelson. He didn't ask him either about Akemi, just talked about the film showing. The talk opened up- to avoid focus on the question at hand? They ended up speaking about their lives, their circumstances, which were very different. Mitchell talked about his finances- rising prices he had to handle- he laughed off the pinch good-naturedly- and to change the subject asked about Nelson's. Nelson revealed that he'd already paid off the mortgage on his house in full, done it in just five years.

"That's great," Mitchell said, taken aback, feeling envy- it rose as a hollow feeling inside him, as he saw his comparative lack of economic progress.

"So any money you make now you can keep as savings," he said. He was still paying monthly rent on Akemi's and his apartment.

He asked Nelson if his house was quiet, remembering he'd once complained about neighbors. Mitchell found he wanted to hear something bad about the place where Nelson lived, saw it wasn't worthy to wish for that but did all the same. He told himself it was no surprise that Nelson, a renowned independent film maker, had money. His case was unusual. Mitchell shouldn't compare his own situation to Nelson's. He understood that but somehow it didn't help.

Where the hell had Akemi been overnight anyway? She might have stayed with one of her friends, Kaori or Hiroko. Hadn't they gone along to Nelson's film showing at the hotel, one of them at least?

The doorbell rang in the apartment.

"Can a guy get a cup of coffee?" It was Nelson. He grinned.

Always downplaying, self-abnegating in a way that reflected a huge sense of self.

He spoke in a low voice emanating power, that of someone who need not make an effort. Others had to in order to hear him. Akemi did. His words, his humor, his come-on echoed in the silence of the doorway surrounding him. Akemi felt attracted. She opened the door without speaking, stepped aside for Nelson.

He said he also needed the bathroom. "Gotta take a piss." As he had their first time in the hotel room, the previous afternoon. Akemi wondered if he'd reached the age when men piss a lot. She'd guessed her husband's former teacher and friend was in his mid to late fifties, but it was difficult to tell with an American. And he had never said how old he was. From vanity?

But he was in fine shape, worked out. Chopped wood to heat their rural home, Akemi knew, had seen on her visit and admired, his back sweating outdoors. He'd talked proudly about his workout routine, was knowledgeable as in most things he put his hand to. He'd placed hers on him, the back of his shoulder. "The dorsal muscles," he'd said. Or maybe those were lower down. Akemi couldn't remember.

Now, after pissing and leaving the door open, flush sound issuing, Nelson asked if she would make a Japanese breakfast for him. It surprised her to see for the first time that Nelson seemed to want some of the same things Mitchell had with her as her husband. Her culture too. She'd always thought of Nelson as above competition- and maybe he was after all. Akemi didn't understand and it didn't matter. Those were just passing thoughts.

Would they do it on the bed where she and Mitchell slept? Yes, they would.

Akemi remembered what Nelson had said at night- "We have the time. Let's use it"- after he'd had her turn over to take her from the back.

She wanted his big thing between her legs, inside her. Nothing else mattered. Thoughts cleared. They sat upright in bed and she wrapped her arms around his head as they rocked, rose and fell and he sucked her breasts. He wasn't tall, had shortish legs- like a Japanese- but from his trim waist rose a broad back rippling with muscles. His forearms, his hands were strong. Akemi gripped his sweating back, his powerful dorsal muscles. Nothing else mattered.

Thoughts came, though, even then. Akemi found it funny she'd seen herself as the cat and Nelson the bird. Wasn't Nelson the predator? Still, it fit with her notion of America, where everything was backward. The words pussy and cock fit.

Nelson's bird, his big white cock fit.

Did it turn him on to do it on the marital bed (Akemi hadn't made a Japanese breakfast for him; she didn't for her husband either). The danger turned her on. She was wet before Nelson even touched her, at least before he had seriously. Of course she could be reasonably certain Mitchell wouldn't return for at least a few hours ("We have the time..") and she could change the sheets, if necessary even do laundry before then.

The way he mushed her breast, as if he wanted to leave a bruise there he wanted her husband to see. It was unexpected, surprised her, but she didn't mind, in fact loved it. It made her push her cunt further to him, bring him in to the point where pulling back wouldn't bring him out. He was in. They were together until the end, until they obliterated everything if need be, leaving any marks they wanted. She liked how he bit her breast. He didn't break the skin, his bird in flight within her broke through again and again.

Akemi talked to Nelson about Mitchell. Does he ask about us, he'd asked with a laugh. He never seemed concerned with whether Mitchell had an inkling about them but Akemi talked about it, sensed he wanted to know. And she found she wanted to talk about it. Her feelings of guilt, being in the apartment with Nelson, who'd just fucked her, brought strange feelings. It was as if she wanted to talk to Nelson about her husband to betray him further, as if to deal with her guilt feelings by cauterizing them that way. Her feelings burnt with Nelson. They lit a flame in each other and she didn't want to put it out.

Nelson had said he wanted to lick between her legs and she'd said, "Later," meaning another time, another day maybe, but he meant now.

They took a shower together and that was when Akemi talked about Mitchell, frankly. She reminded him of dinner at a restaurant his last visit to the city when he'd talked about a former girlfriend who'd "used her lips" on him, talked about "the cool of her mouth" and that he'd never felt anything like it.

"You remember that," Nelson said, pleased, placing her hair behind her ear on the right so they could look at each other through the spray from the shower head above them.

Akemi revealed that at home alone after the dinner Mitchell had said he thought Nelson wanted her, and that he'd been very excited in bed that night, driven to paroxysms by jealousy.

They laughed and Akemi lowered her head, embarrassed but pleased like Nelson, who ran her hands up and down her back to the sleek slope of her rump. His hard-on bounced against her water-smoothed belly. Her bush formed a beard, shaped by waiter sluicing on it.

Nelson saw she wanted to talk and encouraged her. Her hair streaming wet, jet black under the shower. He combed through it with his fingers. Whatever.

They took a walk in the neighborhood. Nelson showed no concern about shopkeepers who knew Akemi seeing him with her so Akemi tried to put aside her concern also. After all, they could be just friends- but it felt like their feelings for each other, what they'd done together, showed.

They walked to and slowed in a commercial zone with a lot of Chinese stores and Nelson talked about the Chinese president and how he tried to collect information about people to control them and not only in his country. Akemi was surprised to hear this from Nelson, who had never before talked much about politics and international affairs, focusing instead on his own concerns, his world, his artwork.

He said the Chinese government used ordinary citizens to monitor others and that they were "like an implacable army of robots," impossible to stop or even see; you couldn't distinguish them from ordinary people, Nelson said. He seemed a little crazy or paranoid to Akemi. She realized how little she really knew him still.

An artist of Nelson's type, charismatic leader type, could be close to madness. Akemi could accept that as natural but wondered dimly if she was making a mistake entrusting so much of herself to him.

He noticed a young Chinese woman in a brightly lit store they passed. She was coming out, worked there apparently. In a shimmering green dress. Cheap fabric not a great color but it looked good on her. She was slightly on the heavy side but looked healthy, pretty with buoyant hair in a bow that bounced as she walked. Nelson said she was good,(an exception, did he mean?) and then talked about actresses he liked, as if reminded by that shop worker. "Calm, self-denying." There were a lot of them and they deserved more recognition. Was he trying to make Akemi jealous? She saw how he looked at the woman on the pavement in front of the door (she'd turned to look through the window; was there something she wanted to change in the display there?) how Nelson's gaze lingered as if making a show of his appreciation for Akemi to see. She was a little thick around the waist- the fabric of the dress bulged slightly there- was attractive a little like a dumpling, but attractive for sure. Akemi could see that reflected in Nelson's eyes.

She knew he liked Asian woman for some reason. Mitchell had told her Nelson said to him once before she and he met, "Find an Asian woman." Advice like homework from his former teacher. Mitchell had laughed but he'd done it. And now this.

Nelson said he thought of using Akemi in a film, thought she'd be good but since she had no experience he might start her in a sex film. "You understand," he said. Then, "How would you like that?" He was joking, giving Akemi that grin again.

They were walking in the daylight, just the two of them alone amid the setting, sights and sounds familiar to Akemi. It felt like floating in a dream.

They walked home, back to her apartment. Like robots? Lol.

He said again that he wanted to go down on her. He still hadn't returned the favor she'd done him the afternoon before. There was time. Mitchell's class wouldn't be done yet, he wouldn't be home again soon.

The phone rang in the middle. Akemi was calling out and the ring tone sounded again and again. There were moments of silence as Nelson trilled his tongue between her legs, intervals of bow-string silence when feeling built, and then her voice came again in high-pitched shrieks, enough to drown out the phone, which had to be Mitchell, she felt sure.

She went down on Nelson again afterward- she wanted to- got to the same rhythm she had the afternoon before- it was as if she'd never stopped, up and down on his long hard curved rod, wetting him.

She wanted to get down it so far his hair at the base tickled her skin.

The phone rang again then and the sounds her mouth made and Nelson's occasional groans weren't enough to cover the ring tone then but Akemi's feelings were and the infernal phone- again it must be her husband- only made her drive on Nelson hard and harding, seeking oblivion, his pleasure and hers.

He sprayed all over her face She wanted him to. The circumstance, him there, her husband calling, didn't close her off. It opened her. Her mouth, her lips, her cheeks, her eyes before Nelson looked brilliant, glistened.