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Knockout

He penetrated inch by inch. Akemi called out. Her vagina felt like sugar melting on him. Sometimes that was how things were. They enjoyed each slow moment, as if in a movie savored frame by frame. It felt good. Every detail seemed to last forever. The point wasn't where they were going but being together. Each second yielded generations of microseconds, and as time broke down so did the boundaries between them; his hardness and her dissolving softness reached the same vanishing point, white light- it really was cinematic, dramatic, not larger than life but as large as life gets. They both recognized the prize these moments were and clambered for them. Their bed became a sound stage.

One night he woke up to find her going down on him- that she had been, that is. It was over. He was all wet. She sat crouched down the bed, smiled up at him, her expression bright and also that of someone who'd just expended a lot of energy. Mitchell saw he had come in her mouth. She looked happy about it.

"I came in your mouth," he said. Akemi nodded. Her lips and around them was wet. That was how he knew, that and the cool, hollow feeling which echoed up his cock and through the rest of him.

It had just happened. Light cream oozed from her mouth, a lot of it. She couldn't talk for the moment, just laughed.

"I was sleeping so I couldn't stop it. I didn't know." Mitchell gave an excuse though Akemi wasn't asking for one.

"You usually avoid that," she said. He'd usually come outside, had in her mouth only a handful of times, drunk after a party once.

The cool of her mouth still rang on him, and the night was just starting. Both stayed up.

Mitchell sent a movie of Akemi to YouTube. It got a lot of hits. He was so interested in the reaction, satisfied by it, that he didn't bother reviewing the version he'd edited together. Later, he finally took a look and remembered he had included footage his friend Nelson had sent him from a film he was working on. Nelson was a serious film-maker and Mitchell had thought adding those takes would flesh out his amateur movie, lend depth, make it a little more art than pornography. But he saw that he had included more of Nelson's images than he'd thought. His film started with them and they went on a while- they looked good, were surreal, with amazing cutting that disoriented the eye- or re-oriented; liberated, Nelson would have said if he were prone to verbalize- think of a classic by Jean Cocteau. What worried Mitchell wasn't the possibility of visitors turning off before getting to the main film of him and Akemi- though that was a concern- but the unfairness to his friend Nelson. That footage came from a new film, one he hadn't finished much less published yet, had shown him in confidence. Mitchell saw he'd messed up. Nelson lived so far away sometimes what happened in their friendship seemed not quite real. He probably wouldn't like having his work in progress broadcast as part of someone else's. Mitchell wasn't sure how to remove a video from YouTube, never had before, wondered if it was even possible. Once something went out on the Web, it was there forever.

He made overtures to Akemi, but she said, "I have my period a little."

"Didn't you just have your period a few days ago?" It occurred to Mitchell Akemi might be making an excuse. She'd had complaints about him lately, claimed he sometimes didn't listen to her. Not taking him to task, no drama, just sharing her view as information she thought he should know. The exchange had all but slipped Mitchell's mind, at the time hadn't struck him as especially significant; but he remembered it now.

As they played in bed, getting warm, Akemi's foot curled around his like a monkey's hand. He told her so, and said with a laugh. "With your nervous energy, you're not going to have a smooth life. There's going to be trouble."

Akemi didn't deny the possibility or appear concerned by it.

The thought had come because they'd just seen a news report about a criminal on the run. They'd missed the beginning, weren't paying attention. He was at a shopping mall, had either robbed something or committed a random act of violence. Anyway, he had shot someone. The camera showed him fleeing the front of a box store, knocking over a shopping cart as he disappeared into the wilderness of the mall. In the parking lot, a camera in a car somehow picked him up. You saw him careen toward the vehicle, lose balance temporarily- he was exhausted from running- his large frame, out of shape, slam into the side window as if into the camera lens. His grey teeshirt, which pressed against the glass as he paused for breath, was spotted by moisture; impossible to tell if that was rain that had started falling or the sweat of his exertion or even blood from the person he'd shot. A portrait of a man on the run, one against the world, capture inevitable. He kept running even though aware of space closing around him. Mitchell guessed it was someone like that who would try to pick Akemi up, a last prize for a person running out of options. But he was wrong. The guy who got her wasn't that threatening or desperate. Instead, he was a prissy Frenchman. The kind who'd order wine from memory at a restaurant and sigh impatiently if the waiter said they didn't have it.

As he watched Akemi get up, saw she had on her good pajamas, through which you could feel the meat of her bottom that followed her around the room, the dark silk ones that flowed against the hand and showered static electricity, he felt pleased with his life, at ease. He didn't know what he was up against.

Mitchell remembered how he first met Akemi- first saw her, that is:

The couple appeared on the left. The daylight from the open door had caught Mitchell's eye. He could see them with his peripheral vision only, recognized it wouldn't be right to turn his attention there while the woman staff member in her late fifties continued talking to him, helpfully. Later he would get a look at the newcomer with the straight black hair, her fine, sculpted features, exemplar of that nationality. He'd have a chance to satisfy his curiosity, hunger for beauty.

The woman- he would later learn her name, Akemi- had just realized she was wearing traditional costume. She'd donned that for some event she and her boyfriend had attended outside. It was still on when they stumbled, laughing, into the culture center. There was just an awkward transition from the noise and rush of outside to the cool silence within. The august setting demanded respect and she felt it, loved or at least was humbled by her country. Hushing herself with a hand to her mouth, not really embarrassed but playing at being, she put on in a single sliding motion that was deft and also playful a conventional dress, purple thing that fit over, also dazzling in its way, not quite purple; light brought to the surface flecks of violet.

Mitchell felt envious of the boyfriend but no animosity; he liked the couple, had to remind himself that sometimes fun was as good to watch from outside as to take part in. He could almost believe it.

The conversation ended without his getting anything definitive. He'd come in the hope of making contacts for his research and left with not so much as a phone number. He'd gotten distracted at the end by that beauty barging in. But as he reached home and talked to Pam, he spoke optimistically of the openness of the place, the staff he'd met, told her they had made him feel comfortable. “They didn't try to shine, didn't have perfect teeth.” He sensed he would somehow eventually find his way get back to the culture center, didn't know it would also lead him to Akemi.

Mitchell often felt he was in the wrong being with a woman from a different country. Was he taking advantage of her dislocation? Sometimes he felt he shouldn't be touching her at all. Later, they would marry; Mitchell would even things out, show his good faith. But calm wouldn't follow. They had fun as husband and wife but Mitchell also found he had competition, no less than when they were just going out together. There was the French guy, Charles, who was interested in Akemi and persistent. You didn't notice at first. He wasn't that conspicuous, but he emerged from the background. There he was again and again, his interest in her unchanged at the same high level. And in the course of things they met him often. He worked with Mitchell.

Again, Charles wasn't that good-looking: sandy hair, odd color match to his complexion. He'd do things like touch Akemi- just a light touch; it seemed like a joke but he wasn't laughing- the smile was there but he ignored you completely, his glittering eyes focused on Akemi alone, with great self-confidence awaiting her reaction he felt assured of; it was just a matter of time before she melted, he thought- at least pretended to. The act was his tactic, or maybe it went deeper- his strategy. These were questions Mitchell would wonder at only later. At first, the idiot seemed to stand no chance.

Alone with Mitchell after a greeting with Charles, Akemi, laughing as they walked away, would comment on his touch- perfectly natural she'd mention that. She'd tell Mitchell it had felt funny.

And Mitchell would realize this was a situation he had to reach to. They'd be sitting at the table at the dining room- Akemi had come to see him for lunch- and Charles would be there and Mitchell would say to Akemi, Maybe you'd better sit on the other side of the table- she'd been between them on the same side- so he wouldn't touch her- and Mitchell saw then that he was determined to have Akemi, he wasn't relenting. Looking at her, close across the table, Mitchell saw her through his eyes, the filter of his desire. She wore a sleeveless top and eyes clung to the gold of her upper arms. Was she- was the soft skin inside high up that exciting? And Mitchell saw the answer was yes; as she was desperately attractive to the oaf, she was to him too.

The black-grey fabric clung to her side high up- it was a fitted top and tight there, a seam followed her torso up- and beside it her arms glowed like fire before smoke. A living surface- think of fog moving on a lake, that evocation- as was the gold of her neck, her black hair, black that stops your eye, all offset by her unselfconsciousness, the way she moved, turning, bending and bobbing to follow the conversation or lead, eyes watchful, taking in the world, entertained, moved by it to amusement, tenderness, twisting her neck in natural grace so lovely almost too painful to watch- you wanted to jump out of your skin- the pleasure Mitchell took in Akemi's presence could derail as he realized that other guy sitting there, who had nothing to do with them, felt the same.

There she was, as she sipped coffee, talking, unaware apparently of the keen interest coming from two sides, a force, pressure bearing down on her. She talked easily, smiling, about something or other. Her lips glistened. There was her tongue, her bright eyes, the smooth tone of her skin, and her cheekbones, the subtle change in color there, as the contours made shadows. And again her eyes moving, the light in them that Charles seemed to draw force from. Who the fuck was he? Mitchell found him obsequious, his stupid Old World charm out of place- his chivalry would be just a joke with Akemi, wouldn't it? She wouldn't make fun of him- she was a kind person- but come on, she's not going to react to that squat little guy, French leprechaun, poking her and then staring with the oily lopsided smile the way he did, eyes brimming.

story continues

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