Colliding Particles

As you know, I was with my  girlfriend Pam when Akemi and I first met. Akemi didn't know, god forbid. She came over once ("I wanna see you") on a day Pam was away and we had a great time.

But afterward silence. I wanted to call, sensed she wouldn't- her character, culture was such that she'd yield initiative to me ("yield" a word she used in our early conversations, one I liked, found impressive, revelatory, fascinating like so much else about her), but worried if I did phone she'd feel she could call me later and might when Pam was around (we didn't live together but she was often at my place).

My concern was less that Pam would find out about Akemi than that Akemi would hear in my voice I was hiding something (despite my efforts to sound normal) and that it would be over between us. Such a discovery could send a soaring love affair crashing down at that early, fragile stage. Her view of me as a man would crumble. She might decide on the spot I was a dishonest two-timing lout and there'd be no way I could convince her otherwise- after all, there was some truth in the description.  

I wanted nothing more than to give her a green light..

Revved. Rearing to go. Anguished.

I told my friend Peter my dilemma and he said I shouldn't delay. "She's ready for you. She needs contact." I said waiting would be okay but knew otherwise, that there was a time limit. Past a point, the moment would be lost.  

I pictured her perched at the edge of an ice-skating rink waiting for me to come around and pick her up, welcome her to join me. And I would wholeheartedly!

I saw that scene clearly, with dreamlike clarity let's say. She's in a sleek outfit ("meek" she might call the color- one of her favorite words, about herself!), ice blue or whatever, fringed, dripping with frills like icicles, that trail along or cling to her curves and pick up the day's light, which flashed all over the place then, darting from the frozen surfaces, amid the figures in motion, striking them, flickering between them (might give an epileptic a seizure!) beams staying low, like roving searchlights, keen as Akemi's eyes, her lips, smile of wonder and question and welcome and again question.

I saw in her face and body alike spirit brimming with anticipation awaiting my call. That's how I pictured her, looking only at the phone I wasn't using. From something so banal, a frigging device, such glorious notions rose up. Glorious? I can't believe I'd even use the word!

Yeah, I'm overdoing it but why not try to convey what I felt and even if possible something of what we both did together. Envisioning (another wrong word) the ice skating rink as the stage on which it all played out.

If I took her hand, she'd quickly reach the same speed as me, we'd glide together, accelerate as one, at velocities neither might dare on our own. That happens. You reach heights and don't bother looking down- for whatever reason, fear not the least of it. You don't want to see the context, which will eventually destroy what ever you have. The moment, the moment. Give yourself to it. It opens, soft like Akemi's pussy. Push forward. There it all is, a world waiting for you.

Things moved on but things stayed the same. We're married now, so why should I feel as I did then? I'm talking about uncertainty.

Skating, yes, is how I saw us, round and round, caught up in the dizziness so we didn't feel it, as in a centrifuge. While light caromed from the low walls around us, we'd play off each other.

That is, if I didn't pass by, continue my own course without her. Miss the moment.

Keep going, round and round, circuit after circuit, and how long would she wait? Not forever. Eventually anyone would give up, no matter how reluctantly; they'd have to get on with their own life, couldn't abandon that. You'd come around one time and she'd be gone, the place where she'd sat empty, as if no one had ever been there.

You're like a child who can't make up his mind. Her eyes show patience, tenderness. But she needs a man. It's up to you, her look says- or her non-look, eyes averted to spare your feelings.

Cool blue and silvery, durable stretch.. Stretch what? Who knows? Polyester? Spandex? Some decorative stuff. Appliques? Is that a word? The image came and went in an instant, left an impression on my retina, a blur that woke my optic nerve and much more but without detail. I couldn't describe her. Maybe that was part of the problem.

There she'd sit, poised, ready to spring, knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around them, costume cut high. You saw the hinge of her hips, her flexibility, suppleness. Her thighs stretched like a bow (see "bow and arrow" as opposed to the greeting in her country). Her dynamic figure highlighted by mid-afternoon city sun and the frosting of the tights, costume beside the point, only accentuating her uniqueness, her glow as a part of the world, a great part. What more can I say to clarify? Her hair seemed to fall in ringlets- it didn't but the sun on it brought a visual rhythm.

Figure? Streamlined, sylphlike, exquisite (what is a sylph anyway?) Think energy spun out of the wonder of the universe itself, or more down to earth, refined like sugar. How to express the power of the tenderness that I felt for her, that she emanated, the ache (again, can't find the right word, none better than "soft and strong," ones she herself used, qualities she admired. I'm talking about her looks but also that brightness, spirit and body, the effect on me.

No, my thing with Pam couldn't survive that. We were almost done with each other by the time I met Akemi. Both of us knew we had no way forward as a couple, yet separating was hard and would continue to be (another story).

J. D. Salinger comes to mind. Don't know why. Wasn't there a scene at an ice-skating rink in "The Catcher in the Rye"? Rockefeller Center date? Maybe that was it.

The whole city felt like your playground when things were going well, except the dangerous parts. So easy to get from one side of town to the other, crosstown bus, subway up or down, everything in between, that rich matrix, so many lives, most having nothing to do with yours. Mine and Akemi's had come together. How?

I felt something of the same anguish now.

When would I see Akemi again? Would she come back?

She didn't from the dance class. Left and stayed gone. Boom. Disappeared. I look for a different word to keep the writing interesting but there really is none. Disappeared.

No, I don't know why.

A friend of mine was raped and said the same thing. "I don't know why!" The whole thing, the accident, as she called it, incomprehensible to her. I understand now. Scratch that. This can be nowhere near as bad as what she went through. God, I hope Akemi hasn't been.. I won't even say it.

I couldn't remember the exact words Peter used. It wasn't "she's ready for you" but something like, "She's hot. She's primed." 

God, the thought made me horny!

Why the references to a supreme being?! I'm an atheist or at least agnostic! Extreme states bring on strange phenomena, like high pressure creates diamonds- no, think instead of an accelerator, the Hadron High Velocity Collider spewing out  particles.

"Large Hadron Collider" it's called; I checked google- make that AI.

What was to become of her, of me? And us? Did we even exist any longer?