The Long Highway Pt. 41

Mitchell is discombobulated at work.

He's trying to remember the meaning of the word "totonoeru." He's never really gotten it. How is it different from "soroeru"?　Arrange? Put in order? He's struggled with Akemi's language.

Mitchell goes to the men's room, which is mixed sex now. Preoccupied, he's not paying attention to the surroundings.

"You think it's amazing?" She'd overheard him saying his thoughts aloud. They know each other only by sight. Both work at the college, or maybe she's a student or doing work/study.

"What?" he asked.

"Being a man is."

Was he saying that? He hadn't been listening to himself talk, was hardly aware he had been. Murmuring reflections on life. She'd taken from the flow of half-audible words a male sexist message he hadn't intended. If he'd voiced it, it was incidental.

"Men's thing is," she said.

Amazing, she meant. Sardonically. Apparently, she thought he had a phallic-centric view of the world.

She's dressed in layers so you don't get a real sense of her body. Black and white net top, the mesh, transparency and black thread webbing, extends to the sleeves. Complicated, as the woman herself seems. Old fashioned, disturbed by contemporary values or as she sees it their absence. Though she is well short of thirty, she seems to have a middle-aged outlook, that of the Old World she came from. She's from Europe but not the Western, advanced part. People there don't move to America; their lives at home are just fine.

Her arms are strong. Black hair appears on her pale forearms. The sleeves reach only past the elbow.

She has dark brown shoulder-length hair, blue eyes, is tall and on the stocky side, an ordinary-enough-looking young woman. But with a chip on her shoulder. Maybe having a bad day. Her accent reveals she's not American, and it's possible she gets fed up with life here now and then. She might cry in her free time even on the job. Is that what she'd come to the bathroom to do? Has Mitchell's entrance interrupted something, a quiet moment she wanted? Americans might strike her as vulgar, shallow compared to her compatriots, European. Worse yet, she has to accept that her adopted country is a locus of power, money. She emigrated here for economic reasons. The imbalance galls her. Why should she feel herself less than these people? She might become impatient some days, not all.

This flashes through Mitchell's mind as she glares at him.

He doesn't get defensive because he feels he's not in the wrong.

"What's amazing for you?" he asks in turn.

"Literature is, like I grew up on."

She's from Poland, proud of her culture, misses it.

"There are a lot of great Polish writers," Mitchell said. He knows but hasn't read any.

Mitchell is thinking of the next visit to Japan, whenever that will be. Meeting Akemi's friends. They're friendly to him but watchful, suspicious, understandably, wanting the best for Akemi.

In the faculty room Mitchell glimpsed part of a nature video up on the wall someone was planning to use in a class.

They do it too, Mitchell saw with despair. One species attacking another, sea creatures, underwater. Then one chicken on another. Black plumage of the female, definitely trying to get away. She's backed into a corner. There's no escape. Next you see only him, larger, overwhelming her. Rustle of feathers, violent struggle soon over. Followed by silence. Then a rhythm emerged. Just like humans. Mitchell watched, wondering how long it lasted. More than a few seconds. Yes. It isn't only to plant his seed. There's pleasure in the doing.

Of course, in Akemi's case it wouldn't be rape.

----

"Go slow," Akemi said.

"Yes."

She doesn't have to ask that, Nelson thought. It felt good going inside by inches, by half inches, advancing and pulling back to a advance just a few millimeters further each time, feeling her cool wet, the sureness she was wet, as she opened to him.

"Does it hurt?"

"Just a little."

He was big for her.

Nelson felt good knowing he was with her, he had her, he was in. No, neither of them worried whether her husband would return and stumble upon the scene. They knew luck was with them, on their side.

Akemi winched her hips to take Nelson in. Her pale bronze thighs cinched up, helped by one of his hands, the other under her ass, sliding up to her waist as he advanced, their liquid motion did. They moved smooth together like a machine, oil drenching its parts. Nelson let out a groan as Akemi called out.

Mitchell meanwhile was making the acquaintance of a new director at work. He'd finished his one class for the morning. Before leaving for home he passed the guy in the office, said hello, stopped so he had to turn around though busy (like Mitchell, whose purpose was different, to leave).

"Let me formally introduce myself."

He'd heard about the new boss, black guy, big man in a blue suit. They shook hands, friendly casual, smiling (both clear the "formally" was meant tongue in cheek), but Mitchell doing what he had to.

"I've been here a while," he said.

"I know you by reputation," the new man said in a rumbling deep voice from his chest. With his red necktie, he looked as well put together as a Christmas present.

Mitchell knew it mattered to establish himself with this person who now made decisions that affected the faculty collectively and individually. They kept the greeting short, but it was done, a relief, likely to both, wanting to get on with their days.

Nelson slapped Akemi's ass, her flanks, in sheer joy. He was in! Each time a revelation. She was. She'd even shown him a Chinese character- he was welcoming her to her world he thought reserved for her husband, not just her body. She asked what he thought it meant. Japanese used Chinese ideographs, she explained.

Told Nelson that one had come up during a break in an English class she was taking. A South American student, woman with "mystical eyes," she said, had looked online and regaled the students with what she'd found. The character, she proclaimed, meant something like throwing your hands up in jubilation. It was half of the Japanese (and Chinese) word for "opportunity."

The student gestured as in a dance, showing what she meant. She was from a country like Uruguay, with dark brown hair and eyes. "Mystical," Akemi repeated. She belonged to an evangelical church, she'd said.

Akemi revealed to Nelson that she and the other students found the South Americans take on the word funny (ridiculous) and entertaining.

Throwing hands up in jubilation. That was what Nelson seemed to be doing now. They both were.

"How is it pronounced?" he said. Akemi said another student in the class, a Korean, had asked the same question. "Let me guess," he'd said. And everyone in the room went silent, waited.

"Sei," he said.

He'd guessed right.

Nelson and Akemi looked at each other, as if having achieved a deep, mystical understanding. Akemi explained that lot of characters were pronounced "sei"and that it also meant "sex."

"It's the right time of month," Akemi had said, meaning not to use a condom. Nelson would have put one on if needed, though he hadn't brought one. He hadn't thought in practical terms, thought- hoped- things would work out because they were meant to. Yes, mystical. His cock went deep in Akemi.

That thinking was his guru side, which Akemi responded to. It made what they were doing seem all right, eased doubts, shame, as the sliding between them did, dousing it with joy, even jubilation.

Nelson roared and so did Akemi, biting his ear, softly but strong enough to bring pain as she whispered "Slow" at the start and they took in each other's smells, breathed each other, pressed so close. Yes, Nelson thought again, really happening, all doors opening for him.

"Okay, baby, okay," he said and kissed her open mouth. Pace picked up, all at once rising to the next gear and the next (Akemi thought of the way Nelson drove- he raced, different from her husband, more in command, not defensive on the road- the other drivers had to defend against him, Nelson had said half-laughing when Akemi mentioned the speed. She was impressed as well as scared). They were getting each other again, really bucking.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Akemi shouting as she bounced with him, colliding, the sound projected from her mouth by the percussion.

Nelson liked her taste, her smell, her tongue. And she must have liked his. They felt like one.

How had this happened, that they were back in bed, not only back there but fucking again- when Nelson had said he was leaving? Something Akemi had said. A trigger.

Her invitations always seemed a miracle to him, an invitation to paradise. He was welcome.

He went so deep in her he couldn't pull it all the way out again with a thrust. It moved inside her, worked like a muscle with hers.

She had a small body, compact. He liked her hard nipples, to lick them. Her husband, his friend, would just have to understand. He bore no ill will. This was meant to be.

Maybe just a brief love affair, but when it was happening it was everything.

Akemi touched Nelson's face ("Can I?") with the rapt fascination, awe as if reaching a hand to the moon on a night it looked close enough to touch.

"You haven't shaved."

It had been over twenty-four hours. Nelson, who came across as a hippy, anyway as an outdoorsman, cared a great deal how he looked, and he liked Akemi's hand on his strong, sharp jaw, which was a point of pride for him, as in fact Akemi's bust was to her.

He laved around, wetting a wide surface of her breasts, which weren't small for her proportions, opened his mouth around the flesh, getting a purchase, and sucked, releasing with a loud pop that was funny and made Akemi arch her back and call out, in reaction to his playfulness, Nelson thought. He took her breast in his hand to do it again. They were in a world where you saw how vital play was to the human condition.

Nelson liked how Akemi bit, kissed his ear, really getting his taste, his intricacies, in fact much the way he had her pussy.

The place and time didn't matter. Wherever, whenever, they were at home with each other now.