"Your Woman"

"Your Woman"

Some of this as well is pretty much ancillary stuff you might want to skip. I'll try to write it clearly all the same, feeling a compulsion, "the truth must be told" kind of thing. I know including each detail down to the most meager is the definition of dull storytelling, but from my point of view it all matters. You live a life. Isn't every moment valuable? (Yes, you might say, but it doesn't follow that each needs an audience).

Needless to say, among the details that command my attention are plenty of life with Akemi. A lot of seemingly minor stuff, things others might not notice, float through my mind now, like stars a man might see after he has been punched hard in the head; for instance, Akemi's nipples under the indigo top she wears to bed. The fact that I can't see them when she has that on makes them all the more compelling. There's the fascination of the unseen, the only hinted at. Some things have the opposite of the imagined effect. The pinpoints showing through the thin wool or cotton or whatever it is, deep blue-purple, don't draw my attention so much to the fact that her nipples are hard as to the softness surrounding them, the taut forms they pull forward. How can you put into words something that's all about nuance? The light dancing on the indigo curves seems to add a hint of blue-green, though that might be only an optical effect, something my eye does.

When we met, I wondered if I might be too old for her. There's one conversation I remember. We stood facing each other. I've forgotten what the hell we were talking about. Another example of my not listening to Akemi? I noted that she looks young for her age. And she seemed not to care about the difference. But who knows what someone else is thinking, even someone into you?

So yeah, I can see that dance of light on her, as she moved into and out of shadow. It's all superficial stuff, but all I've got at the moment.

I couldn't see Akemi's nipples then and I can't now, so I guess there's some truth in the saying "the more things change the more they stay the same."

Yeah, right. Of course everything's different now! She's not here, not on the bed, I can't get my hand into her bush to the rich wetness. When she opens her legs, sitting up on the bed, her legs splayed, fully extended, in her dancer's pose.

I need to get this down. If your wife, the woman in your life, disappeared without warning or word on her whereabouts, you too might feel the inner compulsion to say look, look, look, this happened and this happened. There can't suddenly be nothing at all!

(I'm still hopeful Akemi will return. I'll repeat that often enough you'll probably get tired of it. I need to.

I'm going to expend some effort here (because I have nothing to do waiting for Akemi to come home?) Of course, that puts no obligation on you. Feel free to skim or skip through it.

And it goes on a while. I'm clearing out psychic junk. You're welcome along for the ride, dumpster diving.

When Akemi found out about Pam, the day I came clean and told her I was still seeing my former girlfriend, I approached her on the bed where she was, drew close and said, "I'm in love with you and will be in love with you for the rest of my life. I want you to know that." No matter what happens, I meant, even if we're apart. I was having trouble leaving Pam. We'd been together a while, and I didn't want to hurt her by severing our ties suddenly.  She'd feel upended, as I do now that Akemi's gone without apparent rhyme or reason.

Finally telling Akemi I loved her was a desperate move that came too late. She was no longer listening then. In shock at the betrayal and deceit, she'd turned away to look at her own choices and future. She calmed down later, regained her bearings, but insisted we take time away from each other until I made up my mind who I wanted to be with, giving no guarantees she'd be waiting when I reached my decision.

We recovered from that at the start of our romance and can get over this now. I tell myself, at least, it's possible, even probable.  

She may or may not come back but the bedroom scene does clearly; the dim light; it was fall. We'd closed the curtain to block the sun but it soaked through all the same, enough to make the atmosphere close, almost uncomfortable but intimate in a way we wanted. The difference between outside and inside felt strong as a wall. I remember the scents, ours, that had gathered, still suffusing the close air as we talked about troubles that would end our lovemaking for a while.

Things were difficult then too; that's a point I'm making here. Just before meeting Akemi, I'd gotten off the phone with my old friend Peter, who, in the middle of the conversation, had said. "By the way, there's a health thing," and went on to talk about the doctor having found "toothpicks" in his brain, referring to them. It quickly became clear he didn't mean actual toothpicks, of course not, was referring to lesions of some kind shaped more or less like them. The things might be benign and might not. Further testing was scheduled. Peter, a person with an unfailingly positive view of life, one which puts mine to shame, seemed vulnerable in a way I had never before seen him.   turned out (of course) not to real toothpicks but to some kind of lesions shaped like them. Discovered. Might turn out to be benign but it sounded as bad as anything from a horror movie and Peter seemed plenty scared. Tests would follow, he said.

I've known Peter since high school and while it's true we aren't close confidants, we mostly hang out and have fun, we've been through a fair amount with each other, and I can say I've never heard him sound as vulnerable as he did that day. Peter, a person with an unfailingly positive view of life, one which puts mine to shame, seemed vulnerable in a way I had never seen him before.  

Digression: Comparisons are odious. Isn't that the phrase? Yes, I shouldn't get too down on myself about the difference in Peter's outlook and mine. It definitely owes a lot to our upbringings. He was raised in a stable family while my parents divorced before I knew what family felt like. But there's only so long you can blame your fuck-ups on others, on a bad childhood (and in a lot of ways mine was a damned good one).

Anyway, it was great seeing Akemi that afternoon, enjoying life as the right kind of movie- by which I mean there was nothing horrific about it. and I hope that's true of the present circumstance! Was she freaking abducted? People don't vanish into thin air (another cliché, mark of the non-professional writer).

One thing I've noticed and feel a little bad about but can't help is that when we're apart and she sends me a text or email, I respond more to my feeling, desire for her, than to what she's saying, the content of her message. This time it's different, of course. She's gone and I haven't heard from her.

I can- or could- be obnoxious, especially when I've had a few, alcohol giving me the courage of my idiocy. During the period of separation Akemi insisted on after I spilled the beans about Pam, we happened one night to wind up at the same party, purely by chance, and somebody introduced us, thinking we'd never met. I said, "Oh, we know each other, all right. We go back. We have a strong connection, don't we?" Akemi and I stood face to face and I stepped close and reached to her, whether or not she wanted it, so that our arms threaded together like an octopus' tentacles.  

Peter was okay, incidentally. That turned out to be only a momentary blip, but of course a harbinger of things to come. All of us will be done in one day by "toothpicks," or god knows what else.

Sorry to stop on a downbeat, but your woman leaves you and it makes you reflect, cast your thoughts in a wide net. And I don't have time to work on this anymore today, not with the rest waiting like a mountain for me to chisel through, which labor no one in their right mind would want to witness. I guess I'm looking for readers as crazy as I feel right now.

For sure, thoughts are mostly to do with Akemi. And yeah, plenty of them are funny details or what you might find so, see as trifles, unimportant, such as the things she wears to bed, which I know I mentioned before, the funny top (what am I talking about? It's not funny at all), indigo, dark purply blue, that is, thin, pilled fabric that when she stretches sort of crawls along her body (ha ha), looks as if it will crumble in your hands, because it's delicate like her skin but otherwise of course nothing at all like it, a contrast, not a match.

There's plenty more. Details like how the sunlight moves on that sleeveless sleep-jersey, lending it at times an almost sea-green hue (repeating myself here as well), tingeing one part of it or another toward the warm end of the spectrum- iridescence not something you associate with cotton or whatever, but I saw or imagined that there- it's easy to see things that aren't there in that low but dramatic light.

There's no end of details- when one comes, another follows- of how Akemi moves in the sun, which enters the dim bedroom in shafts, as I want to enter her. Ha ha.

Laughter is only on the page. I'm pretty distraught!

Yeah, it's a lot of repetition, as I guess I'm trying now to see what's not here but hope will be soon.

I hate that expression "Everything happens for a reason." Seems to me stupid as hell. But there definitely is a reason Akemi left. Not knowing it, I'm free to speculate, imagine the worst.

Did I do something wrong? Yes, I did. A lot. But doesn't everyone?

"Your woman"! Talking like she's an object I own or a freaking farm animal! Damned right I need to reflect, think as hard as I can!