It’s the day after I get back from New York City that I tell Jim about Japan. He gets this look in his eye - like he’s too vulnerable to handle - while I’m saying it, because I just got back and he hasn’t seen me in eleven days. I hate the times when I can look at him and just feel his heart breaking, like I’m squeezing it through my fingers.
I wait until after work, when we’re standing in his apartment and he’s opening the collar of his shirt and throwing his tie on the bedroom floor. He’s been smiling at me since I got in yesterday, a smile that reaches his eyes and his cheeks and his chin. My apartment lease expired a while ago, so I’m staying with him for now. We had planned this before Japan, so the timing is great.
“Hey,” I say, and I creep over to him. I can feel the nervousness starting in my stomach, tension that he’s unaware of. I slide my hands over the buttons on his shirt and hook my fingers through the spaces in between them. He looks down at me, chin pointed towards his chest, wide goofy smile, eyes shadowy. I know exactly what he wants, the same thing he wanted last night, but it has to wait.
Before I can say anything, he pulls me to him and just holds me there. I think he needs to let his love out a little, compress the air that’s been between us for three months. It’s nice to be near him, it’s always nice, but this is such a loving nearness. His chin is hard against my scalp and his breath is pushing moistly into my hair. The crooks of his elbows are warm against my sides. I feel very close to him, maybe closer than when I left. It gives me the courage to tell him about the trip.
“Hey, I got a scholarship to go to Japan for five weeks, for design and animation.” I ruin the moment.
“What?” I feel him jerk a little against me in shock. He pulls back and looks down at me, does that thing where he parts his mouth a little. It means that he’s hurt, and it sucks that I know that because it’s going to make this so much harder.
“Yeah, um, one of my professors actually told me about it right when I got to New York, and I applied. I didn’t really think I’d get it, but I got my letter yesterday.”
“So you’re going away again? Why didn’t you-?” He runs a hand through his hair, and it stands up and looks crazy. I reach up and smooth it down, and I can tell he’s annoyed now.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even think I’d get it, but Jane - my professor - recommended it to me. She’s the one who really pushed me to do it in the first place.” He sits on the edge of the bed, on the part where the box spring is broken and sags down a little.
“I mean, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. I‘ve never been outside of the East coast, let alone the country. And this would look great on my resume.” I keep trying to justify the trip. Not that I have to - but I want to make him feel better and see the reasons that I have to go. I’m biting my thumbnail now, and a knot is growing in my tummy.
“When do you go?” He’s bent over, elbows on knees, pressing his fingers into his eyes .
“Not for a couple of months. And it’s only for five weeks. Totally not a big deal.”
“Yeah, it’s not a big deal at all. It’s just…Japan.”
“I’m sorry.” There’s a long silence stretching. I’m standing against the wall, running my toes along the baseboards.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?” I ask cautiously. I’m so used to fighting with Roy about this kind of stuff that I’m already tensed, ready for someone to yell at me or tell me what I’m doing isn’t okay.
“Just, okay. What else can I say? I can’t tell you what to do, or what’s best for you and it’s only five weeks.”
Relief washes through my heart and I join him on the bed. “Thank you.” I kiss him, hard and desperate - knocking our mouths together sloppily. I tell him how much I love him. He doesn’t seem happy about it, but he isn’t fighting me, which is something.
--
A week before I leave, it’s the beginning of November and it’s an unusually warm day for autumn. It’s just rained, and the leaves are plastered to the street. The asphalt is dark and pungent as we walk to the coffee shop around the corner from Jim’s apartment. Everything smells wet - earthy and decayed but somehow fresh - and I love that smell. It reminds me of being little: hating candy corn and loving pumpkin pie. I try hard to imprint all of the sights and sounds in my memory; I know I’ll miss all this stuff while I’m gone.
In front of the coffee shop, he puts his thumbs on my cheeks and kisses me. He tells me he’ll miss me. I have a surprise for him, though.
“I still can’t get over the fact that you’re going to Tokyo for five weeks! It’s really gonna suck having you so far away. ” He’s smiling but his eyes look sad. His breath smells minty from the Listerine rinse half an hour ago, and his teeth shine in the pale sunlight of mid-morning.
“You don’t have to be away from me, you know.”
“What do you mean?” He says. My hands are getting cold, so I shove them deep into my coat pockets and curl my fingers into my palms. Instinctively, I check for cameras, but there aren’t any, of course, because it’s a Saturday.
“I mean,” I take a deep breath, pulling clean autumn air into my lungs before letting it out in a whoosh. I pause, making him wait, enjoying it a little. “I mean, I saved up some money and bought you a ticket for the last week of my stay.”
He looks kind of worried for a second; there’s a crease in his forehead and his lips have that familiar soft frown. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. You let me stay at your apartment for free, so I saved up the money. If you don’t believe me, look under my underwear in your sock drawer for your ticket.”
His hands are chilly on the back of my neck and on my scalp as he runs his fingers through my hair, but his lips are a comforting warmth against mine. The steam of his breath pushing into my throat makes me tingle. I think this makes up for leaving.
--
When I get off the plane, my head is a little foggy from the long ride, and everything feels surreal. There’s a change beginning to stir in me already, like I‘m preparing for how massively I’ll be affected by this trip. I’d never traveled by myself before six months ago, and now I’m alone - halfway across the world.
Everywhere there are crowds of people: waiting in line, rushing to their gate, clumped by the baggage claim. There’s a group of girls in sailor uniforms and bright makeup off to my left. There are businessmen gathered, talking low and fast, right in front of me. They’re bowing curtly to one another, and their expressions are grim. There’s a clear, high female voice coming on over the intercom every two minutes or so, talking rapidly in Japanese and making her vowels very sharp and precise. It’s so crowded that I get dizzy and disoriented. I push through the crowd, keeping my head down, trying to ignore that feeling of claustrophobia gnawing its way through my belly and up my back.
A man named Hideki is meeting me at the airport. He’s my so-called ‘buddy’ while I’m out here, something the school set up to help me out for my short stay as a foreigner. I was told to meet him at the airport McDonald’s. It makes me cringe to think that you can find one even in Tokyo. I stop, briefly, and look outside the giant window in front of the runway. The sky is bright cerulean and cloudless. I can hear the distant rumble of planes and the chatter of Japanese all around me, and I feel strange. It feels good to be alone in such a foreign place; it feels like I’m leaving behind a part of myself in America, growing a new part here in its place.
Hideki taps me on the shoulder when I’m looking over the menu. There are things called shrimp burgers, and things with squid ink in them, and, surprisingly, I want to try it all. I can’t say the same for the McDonald’s in Scranton. I turn around, and he’s holding a laminated sign with my name spelled wrong. I ask him how he found me and he points to his head and says ‘red hair’, which makes me smile. His English isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough.
--
For some reason on the plane ride over here, which was torturous, I kept thinking that all of it would play out like Lost in Translation. Except, I won’t hate my husband and meet an older, funnier man that I fall in love with. So I guess it will be nothing like Lost in Translation, and it isn’t.
I’m staying in a tiny apartment, a temporary dorm that they provide for foreigners. It’s like a super small box, with a super small futon, television and fridge. I feel like I’m Alice, like I‘ve grown ten sizes too big for everything. I hate the closeness of the space, but I figure that I really won’t be spending much time inside the dorm, except to sleep. There are good things about the apartment too; it's in a group of them, all housing foreigners, so I won’t feel so alienated. There are others from Pratt who also earned a scholarship, five besides myself.
Hideki asks me if I want to go out, or if I want to sleep, and I ask him to take me to a sushi place. I know I won’t be sleeping tonight and I need someone to take me around. We ask the others if they want to go, but they’re all tired and turn us down.
Outside, the sun is setting. It’s chilly, and I hug my sweater around me and try to keep close to him as he’s swallowed in the crowd. I almost want to reach out and grab his hand, because I’m terrified of being lost, but I know that would probably freak him out. So I try to keep up, pull my sleeves around my fingers because it’s colder than I’d imagined it would be for this time of year. The sushi place is maybe three blocks away. It’s surprising how much Tokyo is like New York, but with crowds spilling out of every alleyway, no public trash cans, and neon lights everywhere that make the streets glow. It’s like Vegas had a child with Times Square.
The sushi bar is in a tight alleyway, next to what looks like a clock shop. It smells clean and salty, like sea water. It’s crammed full of people, but surprisingly relaxed. I study the chef slicing the fish and arranging it, sweat beading on his face, making sure the rolls are careful and tight. It reminds me of putting together an animation or taking the first stroke of a painting. I eat sushi until I feel sick. Hideki laughs at me and calls it a bonding experience - both of us eating till we might throw up.
We get drunk on sake, something I’ve never had much of before, and his English gets so sloppy I can hardly understand him. My English is just as sloppy, and at the end of the night we don’t really talk because we can’t understand each other.
At my door, he hugs me - a big uncoordinated hug, and I let out a muffled laugh into his sweater. He says goodnight and stumbles down the hall. When I get inside my room I flop on the bed and sleep in my clothes.
I wake up four hours later, still a little drunk, and go the window. The sky is the color of a healing bruise, and my alarm clock says that it’s six-forty. My body doesn’t feel tired, for some reason I feel restless, and I think about calling Jim. I decide to wait, because I have no idea of the time difference, and I need to rely on myself for at least a few days before I can call him. One thing I learned in New York is that sometimes it’s good to just be alone for a while.
--
The work is grueling and more fast-paced than what I’m used to, and a lot of my classes are in broken English with a few Japanese words mixed in. I pick up some regular phrases and numbers one through ten, but other than that I really don’t have the time or the patience to learn Japanese in five weeks. It makes me regret not staying longer.
There is a boy in my animation class who has the exact same glasses as Dwight. He’s odd like Dwight too, except he’s short and squat and Austrian. Whenever he opens his mouth and says something silly or weird, I get this rush of homesickness that makes my throat seize up. It’s only my fourth day and already I want to be back at Dunder Mifflin. I miss Angela’s glares and Michael’s weird sniffling when he cries and Stanley’s indifference. I miss Jim’s hands. I decide to call him that night, before I go to dinner with a few friends from class.
It takes me two hours to go through the process of getting a calling card and figuring it out. I use a pay phone in the crowded communal area of the dorms. I call my mom first, but it’s a brief conversation because she’s on her way somewhere. Then I call Jim. It’s not an ideal setting, but it’s worth it just to hear his voice. He sounds distant and grainy, but I can’t help smiling so wide my face hurts when he says ‘hello’.
“Four days, Pam? Are you playing long-distance hard-to-get?”
“No,” I say, and laugh a little. “I just needed some time to settle in. Things are really…different over here.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Behind me, there’s loud laughing and some yelling, and the sound of a television. I can barely hear him, but it doesn’t matter - just hearing him is enough . His laugh and his jokes and his familiarity fill me up and clean out a lot of that homesickness.
“I can’t wait until you come here. You’re not going to believe it,” I tell him. My head is tilted down, palm pressed against my open ear.
“I can’t wait.” The way he says it, with that smile in his voice, raises the hair on the back of my neck.
“I love you, a lot.” I’m yelling over the noise in the background, so he’s yelling back.
“Really? I’m so-so about you.”
“Oh, okay.” I laugh and hold the receiver close, pressing it hard to my ear as if that will make his voice come through more clearly.
“I love-” Then he’s disconnected - my minutes are up - and all I can do is hang up the phone.
--
On my second Sunday, I take the train out to Kyoto with one of my classmates. Her name is Ada. She’s willowy and German and brunette. She has this weird, childish laugh that sounds like wind chimes. She’s the first girl that I’ve really spent a lot of time with out here, and it’s nice to have that dynamic.
On the train, her fingers are long and slender against the window of our car, silhouetted by the light behind them. She’s tracing the lines of the landscape that’s speeding by and whispering along the lyrics of the music that she’s listening to. The whole scenario is just so unreal that I have to laugh a little. The businessman sitting across from me notices and frowns. He looks old and uptight; he’s wearing a starchy-stiff suit and his eyes are tired.
I ignore him and turn my head toward the window. Blurry sunlight is spilling out from between dense clouds, which makes the fading autumn colors of the landscape stand out in unnaturally bright shades. The rural areas are large and rolling, with trees and houses dotting the landscape. There are a lot of farms and village that shoot past us, and I feel like I’m missing something by not stopping. I could probably stay here for years and still feel like I hadn’t explored enough.
The train is fairly steady, but still a little rocky, and I take it as a challenge. I pull my pastels and my sketchpad out of my bag. I hadn’t experimented with pastels until I got here, and now I can’t stop. I love the texture of them: smooth and oily underneath my fingers. When I push the stick against the paper, it crumbles easily, so I smear the crumbs around in small concentric circles. I scoot closer to the window to get a good look. I’m starting with the sky, and moving down to the horizon. I glance at the businessman - he’s nodding off with his chin tucked into his chest like a bird. I think I’m going to give this one to my mom.
When we get to Kyoto, Ada comments on the colors staining my fingers and laughs her musical laugh. We’re meeting up with a few others who are coming later, so we decide to watch a Kabuki show. We get hopelessly drunk there, before the rest of the group even shows up. I talk to her about Jim and how amazing he is, and about my life in Scranton, at Dunder Mifflin. She nearly chokes on her beer when she hears about Michael and Dwight, and all I can do is laugh.
--
The weekend before Jim comes, it’s raining lightly and it seems almost like springtime, except all the trees are bare and skeletal. I make it a habit to go to a new restaurant three times a week, taste things that aren’t even in English on the menu . I had tried a lot of weird things living in New York, but nothing like this. There are octopus fry balls with little suction cups poking out of them and dried shrimp that you eat like potato chips. There’s fish sauce and red bean paste and ice cream covered in rice dough. There are vending machines everywhere and I’m in awe of the unnecessary amount of them. There are even whole shops dedicated to them, which, I’m embarrassed to admit, fill up a lot of my time. I even write Jim a long and rambling email about them, where I tell him about the experience of getting a beer out of a vending machine. There are taro (some kind of root) drinks with pictures of pumpkins or squash or something on them. On every corner there are bubble tea shops and street food carts and Hello Kitty merchandise that seems so useless (oven mits, really?) that it’s hard to believe that it exists, even in Japan.
I hang out with Hideki more than anyone else because I’m convinced he’s the coolest person in Tokyo. The students from Pratt are either too young or too pretentious. Every time I try to strike up a conversation, they look disinterested immediately and only give me yes or no answers. They also severely lack for a sense of humor, which I find depressing. Just because you’re an art major doesn’t mean you have to dress in black and have a scowl on your face.
Anyway, the weekend before Jim comes, it’s a spring-like morning. The ground is wet and soft and the sky is a slate color. Hideki is smoking a cigarette in front of me, his arm slung around the neck of his girlfriend, Natsumi. We’re on a patio outside of a coffee bar, surrounded by smokers. I’m choking on the smell of it, pressing in on me, but it’s okay because Hideki’s sense of humor has me relaxed. I would much rather be here than be exploring Tokyo on my own and fumbling through Japanese, or hanging out with the Pratt students. He asks me if I want to go to a club tonight, and I tell him that it’s not really my thing. “Come anyway,” he says. He tells me that Japanese clubs aren’t like the ones in America, at least not the ones that he goes to. I tell him that I’m not up to it, but maybe in a few days.
In the afternoon I wander off by myself, because there’s a Shinto shrine I want to see, and I want to experience the peacefulness on my own. I take two trains to get there, and get lost once (so, three trains). By the time I get off on my stop, I’m more than sick of being squished in a sea of bodies, then being herded out like cattle when the train doors open.
The sun has crept out from between cracks in the clouds, and everything looks washed out and ethereal. The walk to the shrine is amazing, even if I have to climb what feels like two thousand steps to reach it. There are a few girls hanging around, with black hair that shines and long linen robes. There’s an old man sweeping the stone steps in front of the entrance. He looks up at me, smiles a nearly toothless smile. His face is full of wrinkles and warmth. There are no sounds around me, except for the knocking of a bamboo pump and the gentle scraping of his broom on the stone. There aren’t any people crammed against me, or swarming around me. There’s no talking or laughing or screaming. The girls have disappeared and the old man is silent. I can hear birds off in the distance. A few crows caw at me, perched on a nearby rock.
I sit on a bench outside and just close my eyes and think about how I’ve been sort lonely, but it’s a clean kind of loneliness, and I don’t feel alienated or anything. It’s a self-reliance that I’ve never felt before in my life, not even in New York. It’s a good loneliness because it’s just me and my decisions and my selfishness. That’s something that I’ve really never had before, because my whole life has revolved around fulfilling myself with Roy or thinking about Jim. Then I start to feel full of gratitude for this trip, for New York and for Pratt, even if I’m going to be paying off student loans for the rest of my life.
--
I finally go out with Hideki - to a party in a penthouse apartment. Somehow he gets me in, and he brings his girlfriend and his best friend Akio. Akio speaks English really well, but reminds me of one of those guys in the States who wears sunglasses all the time, even when they’re indoors. I think Jim calls those guys ‘douchebags’.
I feel really out of place, because everyone looks like a skinny hipster or an heiress or something, and I’m wearing a plastic raincoat with flowers on the lining, and a heavy sweater and my gray comfortable flats. It’s so not my scene, but Akio presses his fingers into my back and guides me along to a couch that lines the wall. Somehow they got these green lights to light up everything, but the lights are hidden, so everything is just glowing greenly with no source. It’s really eerie.
Somebody hands me a neon-colored drink and I sip it politely. I can’t really place the flavor, but it’s fruity and sugary and it slips warmly down my throat. I can hear people talking all around me, but the language is sharp and foreign. Akio talks to me for a little while, mostly about himself, while I sip my drink and clench my fist in my lap. It’s a pretty boring place, even with the loud pulse of unnamable music and the fancy hidden lights.
I eventually find some foreigners to talk to, and now my belly is warm and my throat is stinging from the alcohol. There are two Americans and one Australian. The American girl is deathly thin and has long curly hair and freckles. She reminds me of a runway model and makes me feel a little insecure. Her boyfriend is wearing size zero jeans and eyeliner. I can see his roots growing in underneath bleached-white hair. They would make me laugh at how hard they’re trying if I didn’t feel so out of place.
The Australian is tall and has long limbs and crooked teeth, and black hair that falls into his face. His smile reminds me of the Cheshire Cat and I’m just buzzed enough to let him know it. He’s drunk, so he laughs and kisses my cheek, hugs me against his side. It doesn’t feel comforting though; I feel so out of place here. Despite having been packed into train cars where I stand out like a sore thumb (red hair, pale skin, green eyes), this is the place that I feel most alienated. For some reason this place reminds me of people trying to be something they’re not. This isn’t Japan, this is some rich likeness of Japan that’s exactly like the scene in New York City - based on wealth and drunkenness and hedonism and fashion. I feel a wave of déjà vu that turns into a wave of sickness.
After a while I start getting headache-y instead of being buzzed, and I let Hideki know I’m leaving and I’ll find my own way home. It’s too much of an effort to take the train, which I think is closed anyway, so I just take an expensive taxi ride back to my dorm.
My headache eventually dissolves when I think about Jim coming tomorrow. I press my face into the pillows and force myself to sleep.
--
My voice is a little hoarse the next morning from yelling and alcohol the night before. There’s a tickle in my throat that won’t go away. I also feel a little worn out, but despite that, I’m waiting at his gate half an hour early. It’s been a month since I’ve seen anything familiar, let alone Jim, and the excitement is making my bones feel like jello. When he comes out I feel my heart start to thump a heavy beat, like I did on our first date. I run towards him and he hoists me up, fingers digging into my ribs. I kiss him and familiarity of it gives me an adrenaline rush.
He’s wearing a baseball cap, hair smooshed around his face, and he looks a little tired, but other than that he’s happy. “God, that felt like forever,” he whispers to me. I know how he feels; after the flight my head felt like all the air had been pressed out of it. We head towards the baggage claim.
He only brought one bag, because I told him to. The train ride would be hellish if we had to lug a lot of suitcases around and we want to conserve money by not taking a bus or taxi.
“It’s so good to see you,” I say against his shoulder. I’m squashed against him in the train, but it’s a good excuse to hold onto him and press my cheek against his arm.
“I think that’s an understatement.” He’s smiling. He tries to rearrange himself at different angles to get his arm around me, but it doesn’t work. Even with the one suitcase, this is still hellish.
We get a fairly cheap hostel room because we can’t stay at the dorm together. The bed is small, even smaller than the double bed we improvised at Dwight’s farm. Jim tries it out and his legs almost dangle off of the edge.
“Well, this should be comfortable.”
“We won’t be sleeping much, anyway.” I’m in front of him, pulling on some jeans.
“Oh we won’t, huh?” He grabs my forearm and I pull away from him.
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, it takes a while for your body to adjust to the jet lag.”
“Oh. Well, we can just have sex instead.”
“I did not know that a twenty hour flight made you this horny.” He grabs me by the waist and I flop down on the bed with him. Then I notice that the walls don’t quite meet the ceiling. He starts to kiss me before I stop him.
“We have to be quiet, okay?” I point up at the ceiling. He smiles.
“You mean you have to be quiet.”
He slips his thigh between my legs and puts his hand gently over my mouth to remind me.
--
During the day, when I’m at class, I wonder what he must be doing. I introduced him to some of Hideki’s friends, and he met a lot of people in the hostel on his first day here, so it’s not like he’s completely alone.
I imagine him walking by himself through the streets of Shinjuku, head and shoulders above everybody, sticking out even more than I do. His hands would be stuffed in his pockets and he would stop to hold the pawing-cat souvenirs, or buy me a t-shirt with an English phrase that doesn’t make sense. His posture would be even more horrible than it regularly is, spine bent, curling into himself as if it will make him shorter. His baseball cap would be planted squarely on his head, shadowing his face in a desperate attempt at anonymity. Japanese schoolgirls would giggle as they pass him, hands hiding their mouths. They’re in awe of his height and his smile, that charming vibe he gives off even when he’s not trying. Whenever I come up with these scenarios, I squeeze my knees together in anticipation of seeing him.
Every day that week, I get back from class and he’s waiting for me - schedule memorized - and his palms always cradle my cheeks and his lips are always warm against my forehead and my neck. When we see each other after a few hours apart, it’s like we haven’t seen each other for days. I feel guilty for leaving him alone in a foreign place, while I go to school. But it’s also kind of nice to be away from him, and return to him, because if we were together constantly things might get a little tense. Besides, I know that everyone needs to be alone in a foreign place, at least for a little bit. That’s how you explore yourself.
On different days, he tells me different things when I get back from class. ‘I pointed to something on the menu - I’m not sure what it was, but I ate it ,’ or ‘Pam, there is this little seafood place that would blow your mind’. When I think about him exploring food and people and places on his own, there’s a twist in my heart. I can’t tell if it’s jealousy that I wasn’t there to experience it with him, or happiness that he’s feeling what I felt when I first arrived (that overwhelming sensation of being completely lost and loving it).
--
We’re on top of the Tokyo tower, and the day is gray and windy. Jim’s cheeks are rosy and my ears are burning. His hand is cold in mine, so I squeeze it reflexively to warm it up. Dark clouds are rolling in, from the west, or the east, or whichever way that is. We’re surrounded by metal bars fused at odd angles and red blinking lights. In front of us I can only see the city sprawling out endlessly.
“This is…kind of ugly,” he offers.
“No it’s not! It’s beautiful. In its way.” And it is beautiful. The neon lights, the towering buildings, the feeling of a monstrous metropolis are dreamlike.
“You wouldn’t believe how jealous Dwight was that I got to come here.”
“No, I think I would. He wouldn’t shut up about how I should visit the technology district, or check out the handmade samurai swords, or the panty shops, or the anime stores. He was at my desk more than you were.”
He lets out a laugh. “Yeah, well - it was even worse after you left. He constantly wanted to know what you were doing and where you were, if you were eating at the most authentic places - squid guts and frog hearts - or eating all the ‘touristy’ stuff like sushi and tofu.”
I pause for a moment and a wave of emotion comes through me. “I miss him.”
He looks down at me, face pulled into a frown. “Whoa, Pam. Did you just say that you miss him?”
“Yeah. I miss everyone though. I want to go back home. I just feel really isolated. If you hadn’t come here I would’ve gone insane.”
His fingers curl around my bicep, and my head fits nicely under his chin. It’s a warm space. I feel good, despite the fact that the autumn wind is blowing in my face, knocking the breath out of me.
I look up. He’s squinting against the wind and his face is red.
“Hey, are you cold?” I spread my fingers over his jaw. “Let’s go get some food.”
--
On our last few days - a weekend - we take a trip to the mountains. Jim convinces me that we have to go, even though I know it’ll probably look a lot like the mountains in Pennsylvania during fall: cold and gray and boring. He rents a car and drives like an old man, careful to stay on the wrong side of the road. Outside of the car, the scenery looks wet and heavy. There’s a blue mist rolling in and everything is covered in a thin condensation.
It’s dusk by the time we arrive at the inn, and it’s chilly. My breath is puffing out in front of me in faint clouds, and I can see a fuzzy glow up ahead, lit windows in the dark. I look upward. The outlines of pine and fir trees are framing the sky, and the stars are so bright, it’s unreal. I’d gotten so used to an industrial life in Scranton that I forgot what a clean night sky looks like. The whole area looks pretty isolated and I start to wonder how Jim even found this place. ‘Hideki,’ is all he says, refusing to give anymore to the answer to keep the mystery.
There’s a small room for both of us, with another bed that cuts off at Jim’s ankles. It’s so narrow that I’m practically on top of him. ‘Maybe you can sleep on the floor,’ he deadpans. ‘Maybe you can,’ I shoot back.
The inn is actually a small spa, with hot mineral baths. All of the rooms are separate buildings, made out of raw, weathered materials that make everything smell natural and woodsy. Nobody speaks any English, so we have to make due with wild hand gestures and vigorous nodding.
In the morning, I wake up early. Jim is lying on his belly, facing away from me, snoring loudly. I poke him and say his name, and he shifts but doesn’t wake up. I pull on the thin robe that the inn has given me and open the back door facing the baths. I start the walk towards them barefoot, dead leaves crunching under me. The air is cold and smells smoky. The sun looks white and prismatic, streaking through the trees and the morning fog. The hot spring is fairly small, surrounded by rocks. I strip off my robe and slip in, savoring the shock of the hot water. Normally I would be modest, embarrassed about stripping down in broad daylight, but the baths are quiet and empty, and there’s no one around. It’s nice.
I close my eyes against the contrast: the prickle of the cold air on my neck, reddening my cheeks, and the heat on my breasts and legs and belly.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Jim squeezes my shoulder gently, startling me a little. I hold my nose and dunk my head under, wipe the moisture from my eyelashes before looking at him. The heat from the water has caused a dense steam to settle over everything. His face looks soft and young in the cloudy light, his cheeks shiny.
“I tried, but I don’t think you heard me yelling your name over your snoring.” He smirks at the joke. He pulls off his robe and his boxers and slips in beside me, sucking air between his teeth as his body adjusts to the water. I scoot closer to him and rake his hair back from his face with wet fingers. He grabs my wrist and pulls me closer.
His lips are slippery and taste like salt. I can feel a flush coming into my face and I start feeling heated, almost overheated, but it’s a good feeling. The steam is pressing in on me, combined with his body heat and the hot, sexual feeling zipping up my spine. When I pull away from him, we’re both breathing hard and his lips are too red.
“Are we really going to do this - outside?” He doesn’t answer me.
He skips his fingers over my thighs and stomach. His breath is pushing against my shoulder. My eyes are fixed over our view of the mountains - distant and blue. I feel a little scared at how much I love doing this outside. There’s a thrill in my heart, thinking that anyone could walk into our line of sight.
His hand moves gracefully between my thighs and his knuckles are just skimming the flesh there, just nudging gently until my legs start to shake. He pushes one finger inside of me, then two, and moves in and out slowly. I let a small, desperate sound out of my throat. His arm slides around my shoulders, holding me still, keeping control. His mouth is on my ear, then on my cheek. I turn my head and I’m heaving wet and heavy sighs into his lips, almost hiccupping because I’m so hot, and his fingers are rubbing me gently but firmly - inside and out. The clouds of steam are curling lazily, and I can see beads of moisture making a long journey down his neck, from behind his ear to his shoulder. My breathing starts to get more intense, and my palm forms into a fist against his back, digging my nails into my skin. I come when his other hand moves to my breast and gives my nipple sharp tug. I let out an hoarse shout that radiates out into nature.
My chest starts to slow down, and my brain feels fuzzy from the orgasm. My ears are buzzing a little. I lean heavily against him, then take him in my hand. He feels smoother than usual in the water, harder than usual too.
“Oh, God,” he says in that low, scraped way that makes me swell between my legs. He sucks in a breath, hot and fast, and suddenly I’m over him and I’m sitting down on his lap, sinking down slowly, feeling that smoothness inside of me.
“Oh,” the word is terse from his mouth, and his eyes are closed, his face drawn tight. I can feel the cold air on my breasts and the heated water on my lower back, and his fingers pressing on my spine, telling me to go faster. I start moving, and my knees are hard and hurting on the bench of the bath, but it’s okay because I want more and I can’t stop.
I move slowly at first, because I like seeing that look in his eyes, like he wants it more than anything. Sometimes he wants it so badly that he gets a little forceful, controlling - and I like that. His thumbs are on the small of my back, and he’s hinting a little bit, but I want him to tell me.
“Give it to me,” he says, next to my ear. “Now.” He emphasizes the word by pulling me down on him sharply, and a noise comes out of me that I can’t control. He slips his fingers between us, rubs me until I can’t help but squirm.
“Okay,” I concede. My breath is pushing out in hot visible bursts. I start moving faster, nails scraping over the slippery flesh on his shoulders. His fingers are sliding wetly over my breasts, sometimes catching my nipples in between them and pulling. I try to be as quiet as I can, biting my lips and choking back loudness.
I can tell he’s close when he puts his arm around my waist and crushes me against him. I start moving really fast then, because he likes that - when he comes he likes it rough and sudden.
“Come on,” I say softly, between harsh breaths - and then I say it again. “Come on.” I kiss him, hard, almost until it hurts, and when he comes he’s helpless and he’s pulling me close and being loud.
I stay on top of him for a second, resting my forehead on his shoulder. Then I lift off of his lap and seat myself beside him.
“Oh,” I sigh. “That was good.” The water is hot and pleasant around me.
“It kind of was good.”
“Kind of?” He doesn’t answer. He puts his arm around my shoulders and we both stare at nothing.
“Did we forget to bring towels out here?” I ask him. I look around. There’s water everywhere - our clothes outside of the spring are soaked. There are no towels.
“Shit,” he mutters, but he looks to sleepy to care.
--
The plane ride home is just as bad as the one to Japan. At the airport I squeeze Hideki tightly, probably until he can’t breathe. I tell him ‘goodbye’ in my horrible attempt at Japanese. I feel tears coming on, and the hot embarrassment that goes along with those tears. Jim just shakes his hand awkwardly, then takes my arm as we head to the walkway.
“You should be honored, you know,” I tell him on the plane, when we have one hour left.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I wouldn’t want to spend fourteen hours on a flight with anyone else.”
“Oh.” He leans his head back on the headrest and smiles. “Well, same to you.”
“Not that I really want to spend fourteen hours on a flight with anyone, but if I could pick someone - it would be you.”
“Oh, well that kind of ruins the whole moment, but okay.” I punch him gently in the arm. “So, on a scale of one to ten - how excited do you think Michael will be that we’re back?” He asks me
“Oh, God, don’t remind me.” I feel a grimace take over my face. The cup of water on my tray rattles gently and I steady it.
“It’ll be especially bad for you cause you’ve been gone for five weeks.”
“Do you think he’ll bear hug me like he did when I got back from New York?”
“That or try to kiss you. So be prepared.”
“Ugh.” I squeeze my eyes shut and Michael’s face pops into my head, with that wild-eyed look that he gets whenever I return from vacation. He always ends up trying to hug me (read: grope me) or kiss me.
“And then there are the cameras. The producers, the crew. Oh - and Dwight. Dwight will be there with a ton of questions, I’m sure.”
“So it’ll be like after New York only worse, huh?”
“Probably anywhere between ten and twenty times worse.”
“That bad, really?”
“Well, yeah - they‘ll see the ring.”
“What ring?”
He pulls something out of his pocket, a soft box, and pulls it apart. There’s a something shiny inside. My heart starts to thump really fast. Somewhere I have a thought that I should be angry, because he’s proposing to me on a plane back from Japan. Maybe I should say no. But I don’t.
Author's Chapter Notes:
This is the longest story I've ever written, and it took me a long time to write and re-edit and figure things out, probably around four months. Only recently did I look back and see how simple it was. So that's a warning: this story is almost about nothing. There's really no conflict, just description. I guess I just wanted to write about traveling, since I've done a little but not enough, and I wanted to put myself in that place (Tokyo) and see how I would feel and react. Also, there's a lot of stuff in here that's inaccurate/not real/not very realistic. So I apologize, I didn't do a tremendous amount of research because I just wanted the thing done with already. And I still think it needs a lot of improvement. Anyway.
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