The thing is, Mitchell was grinning as he spoke. His expression, the light life in his eyes left no doubt he was deliriously happy having Akemi.
He could talk about their touch and go courtship now that he was so sure of her, married and all.
The three of them were at the bar in the Caribbean (island name need not be given) when this conversation took place. For some reason, Eric remembered it vividly. Akemi had left for a bit and Mitchell talked to him as a friend, man to man, said there were times when he and she had first gotten together when things seemed fragile as hell.
He described in rough terms a night he remembered when they were with friends and she “sort of started to ignore” him or “not see me.
“It was as if she’d gone into a dissociative state. And it continued all evening. I felt frozen out. She wasn’t unfriendly to me, just not there.”
“Dissocia-?”
Mitchell went on. “We were in the college library. She was going out with friends who’d joined her there. She’d been looking at the shelves, all these rows of books. Maybe something she’d seen in one upset her. No idea.
“And when she left- we weren’t living together yet- she went with friends, a group of them- like a row of books, ha ha (I can laugh about it tonight, thank god)- and passing where I stood she said goodbye without distinguishing me from them. It sure seemed that way. I thought ‘Is this what I’m going to get if we hook up?'”
Mitchell was drunk, otherwise wouldn’t have run his mouth that way. Even so, he used hundred dollar words. Eric recalled them even now. Distinguish. Disassociative.
Mitchell was a dull conversationalist but everything he said about Akemi drew Eric’s rapt attention. He was like a general planning battle. Know your enemy in order to defeat him.
“I get it,” he said. “It was like you’d become just another person to her, not different from anyone else.”
“Yes,” Mitchell said, grateful for the understanding. Eric saw that the memory of that library snub or whatever it had been still seared.
“Like a book on a bookshelf,” he ventured to add, using Mitchell’s own words to encourage more talk, showing he really was listening. Mitchell grinned, not offended, not seeing the echo as mockery, though it came close to that.
“Everything built up between you and her vanished in a moment and there was no clue why or where it had gone or when it would come back.”
“Yes. Yes,” Mitchell said.
“I’ve been there,” Eric repeated, though in fact he hadn’t. He made a point of not letting women get under his skin the way Mitchell had. He lied to show solidarity, which was also false.
“The truly disturbing thing,” he improvised, “is that if that happened once it could again. She might go back to normal, warm up to you again- obviously she did, you’re together- but if she’s gone off like that one time, she might another. Your confidence is broken.”
“Not broken, but it was tested,” Mitchell said, relaxing visibly and collecting himself, not wanting Eric to take the troubling moment from his past as more than it was. He’d just been talking to cheer up that man who didn’t have an Akemi in his life. We’re all equal, he meant to say, only that.
He couldn’t fool himself or Eric.
The free talk from Akemi’s husband made Eric think he might not have many friends. Between his job and his marriage, he probably found few chances to get things off his chest like this, gain perspective on Akemi. He was clearly mesmerized by her. Eric could imagine the tension of living with someone like her, of the protectiveness, jealousy that might build up in a man like Mitchell, guy who lacked a confidante, kept things to himself. He must have struck Akemi too as strange sometimes.
Had it occurred to him Eric might be too? Maybe he suspected as much and that was why he was talking, one reason at least, to check him out, assure himself he was not a threat, a rival. Good luck.
Eric felt a confession from Mitchell merited a response in kind, which might draw out more information. He wanted to know as much about Akemi as he could as fast as possible.
Eric moved in turn to bolster Mitchell’s spirits, show solidarity after the unnerving account of early days in his romance “Let me tell you. I’ve been through my own shit with women. They can be like cats. No understanding them sometimes. Other times they’re great, of course.” He smiled here dreamily. Dreaming of Akemi’s ass, Mitchell wondered? Of course he’d noticed the other man checking her out on the bar stool and when she walked off- or was that just his habit, to leave his mouth hanging open?
He went on. “I was with a woman once for a year and a half and we broke up and it was hard, man. She decided suddenly she’d had enough.
“I felt I might never recover,” Eric said after explaining how close his former girlfriend and he had been, really serious about each other. “I realized I’d formed a vision of my future that was based on us together, so to get past that I’d have to build from zero a new view of my life that didn’t include her, and it would take time, not just weeks but months at least; a natural process had to play out. There was no hurrying it.”
“That sounds rough,” said Mitchell, who appeared troubled by the description, as if imagining himself in the same spot. What if Akemi left?
“How old were you when that happened?” he asked.
“Just twenty-one. And you know how serious things feel then. You think it’s the end of the world.”
Mitchell nodded more than once, in misplaced solidarity.
He didn’t tell much else of import about Akemi then but what he had said already mattered.
The experience with her he’d revealed, his taking him, a near stranger, into his confidence, was a surprise (they’d both been drunk) and gave Eric hope, even in retrospect, that the signals he’d been reading from Akemi that evening and before weren’t just imaginary, that she might be available to him after all and not just for fugitive blowjobs- which were great- but for good long sessions of fucking. Eric remembered this on the street with Akemi and her friends, heading out for dinner, he and she fully clothed now of course, but his thoughts again on her breasts as they’d been last time, a handful in his grasp as she’d gone down on him, open-mouthed, open throat.
After the night with Akemi’s friends Eric got back to his place (temporary digs till he found his own) and masturbated.It was something he usually rarely did because he usually had a woman, but he didn’t since returning to New York, where the only woman he wanted was Akemi. He imagined it was her hand on him, her mouth, her cunt.
—
The morning after Akemi’s night out, Mitchell got off to a late start. He was on edge and in a hurry to leave, wanted time to do some more preparing at the college before his class began, also hoped to catch a few minutes to relax online, look at some entertaining stuff he’d found and looked forward to. Beyond that, he had an appointment with Akemi’s friend Eric, the guy they’d met on their short Caribbean vacation. Eric had expressed interest in the college where he worked and Akemi took courses. Mitchell said he was welcome to visit and he’d give him a tour ”of my office,” explain how the job worked “though it’ll probably bore you to death.”
“Who knows? Maybe I can drum up some photo business.”
Eric and his friend Mick were opening a photo studio and on the lookout for clients.
Eric had some time on his hands as the studio wasn’t yet running at full capacity. He’d been using his leisure to woo Mitchell’s wife. That had been the other project that filled the days since his return to New York after three years in the islands working freelance.
They’d agreed Eric would stop by the college that morning.
Mitchell didn’t know what was going on between Akemi and Eric, though he had his suspicions.
His friend Peter phoned before he left. An enjoyable conversation but Mitchell wasn’t in the mood to sit back and banter. His energy was primed for work to be done and he meant to keep it that way.
His cell showed another call was coming. That gave an easy and defensible excuse.
“I have to get off. Someone else is calling. It may be about work.”
In fact, the caller was a colleague who also taught a class that morning. Jeff said he wasn’t sure he should go in, he wasn’t feeling well. What did Mitchell think, he wanted to know.
Mitchell was in a hurry, but listened.
Jeff said, “I woke up today with a sore throat. I can’t breathe. Ha ha.”
He talked like that was funny.
“Do you have a fever?”
“Yes.”
Classic symptoms.
“Maybe you have Covid.”
“Covid?”
Mitchell’s coworker and friend talked like he’d never heard the word before.
Mitchell hoped he had a mild version.
Maybe Jeff felt fear and was trying to keep it at bay with his blasé attitude.
Mitchell wanted to hang up the phone and get on with his day but felt he couldn’t under the circumstances. Another call he could end right away, explain he was busy, but not this one. He couldn’t and live with himself. His friend might really need help even if he didn’t recognize it yet.
Mitchell tried to dissuade Eric from coming in to work but he wouldn’t listen. Mitchell sensed he wanted to proceed normally to avoid facing the reality that he might have contracted the potentially lethal virus.
Jeff said he was going to work. Mitchell met him there, in the teachers’ room. He kept a distance and advised Eric to at least go to the college health center, have his symptoms evaluated.
They were still at an impasse when deputy boss Martha arrived. Mitchell was happy to let her take over and she did so handily evaluating the situation right away and proceeding without hesitation. She was a good boss, Mitchell noted, a leader. He admired her strength, both moral and physical. She was stocky, with strong arms and remarkably strong calves. She had thick brown hair she let fall any which way. Looks didn’t matter to her. She cared about getting things done.