Bay Bridge Soliloquy
The truck rolled over slowly, like an old elephant lying down to die. After it
came to rest the wheels on one side spun uselessly in the air. Around me cars
slowed and stopped on the wind-swept bridge. All lanes were blocked. I was
going to be late.A hand gently touched my shoulder. "Sir, you have to put your seat upright for
takeoff." I'd fallen asleep before we left the gate. Leaning into the aisle, I
watched her continue forward repeating the same admonition to other passengers -
the pleasant motion of her hips beneath the somber blue skirt. Willowy, Asian,
she was just my type. All the way across the pacific I did my best to flirt
with her although I'm inept at it and shy. Emboldened by too many drinks, I
took the uncharacteristic step of giving her my business card with my number in
San Francisco scrawled on the back.A colleague of mine had tried that trick once with spectacular success. There
was the cute JAL stewardess he carded on the way to Tokyo - her shy voice on the
other end of the phone at his hotel a day later caught him off guard. They went
out for sushi, to one of those places that send it around and around on a
conveyor belt. He surprised her by how much he could put away. Later, it had
been her turn to surprise him with the amount of enthusiasm she put into fucking
him.I imagined Michiko crumbling up the card and throwing it away as soon as my back
was turned. Women like her probably got propositions better than mine every
day.A number of people were running between the lines of stopped cars in the
direction of the overturned truck. I considered getting out, but already a crowd
was gathering up near the cab. I saw the driver helped out, OK. Wind slashed
across the bridge hard enough to make my car shake. Overhead, ragged clouds
scudded beneath an overcast sky.She was supposed to be waiting for me near the Coit Tower. The wind would be
whipping her hair into a tangled mess across her face. I remember ending up
there on our first date. It was bright and sunny that day. She ran her hands
over the rough warm surface and told me she loved the tower because it was named
'Coit' and because it looked like a phallus. She stared at me, deadpan, until
she couldn't stand it any longer and burst out laughing. Our second date was at
the little noodle restaurant with the grimy floor and the soy sauce bottle stuck
to the table that made her laugh. While we ate, her knees kept bumping into
mine but I was too nervous to do anything about it. Our third date never got
off the ground. When I arrived at her door with a bunch of flowers she pulled
me inside and we ended up spending the evening in bed.Michiko loved lying beside me and talking after we had sex. She got into the
habit of letting her hand slide down between my legs and grasping me by the
balls, partly to help me get ready for another go-round, but also to see if I
was paying attention to what she was telling me or if I was falling asleep. If
my reaction wasn't up to her expectations, if I didn't respond frequently enough
with 'Uh huh' or 'is that so?' she gave me a sharp tug. If I said something
clever, or she liked my attitude for some other reason, she would move her hand
up and begin doing the most amazing things to my cock with her fingers. I was
always trying to think of something clever to say to her when we were in bed.She told me about her mother early in our relationship. As a young girl,
Michiko had come home one day and caught her in bed with a lover, a man who
worked with her father, an American. When her parents divorced, Michiko thought
it had been all her fault. She told me as an adolescent she was drawn to
foreign men. Michiko assumed she had a taste for the exotic until realizing one
day that all her boyfriends resembled her mother's lover. Although she had
never mentioned it to him, she imagined how painful it must have been for her
father to see her bring home a string of tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed American
boyfriends when he was always trying to introduce her to the sons of his
Japanese colleagues.Michiko admitted to me that over the years, every time she went to visit, she
spied on her mother. The first boyfriend, the one who had broken up the
marriage, was long gone, but Michiko had surreptitiously watched her mother in
bed with several other men. Most of the time they had only been sleeping, but
Michiko confessed to having seen her mother fuck four different guys. When I
told her I thought she was sick, she gave me a painful yank. After that she was
very quiet for a while.After I'd known Michiko for a few months I actually got to meet her mother.
Yoko was a petite woman of about fifty, her hair in a severe looking bowl-cut.
Her companion, a tall blonde muscular-looking fellow appeared to be at least ten
years younger. With Michiko's stories in my ears, the images that went through
my mind were pornographic. I was titillated and ashamed by my reaction and I
was glad that our meeting was brief.I pounded the steering wheel. Someone had to notice that no cars were coming
off the bridge. I imagined Michiko could even see it from the Coit Tower where
she was waiting for me. Why wasn't the tow-truck here yet, or the cops? If I
didn't see her today, she would leave without saying goodbye.I wanted to spent the night and all morning with her but commitments in Berkeley
I had made weeks ago could not be altered. Michiko always made love with extra
intensity before she left on one of her transpacific flights. I remember her
climbing on top of me early in the morning when the only part of me awake was my
cock, leaning over to slap down the snooze button when the alarm went off so she
could keep on fucking. She said it was more important to feel the last of my
come trickling inside of her in the middle of a long flight than to have those
few extra minutes showering and doing her hair. Sitting up in bed I watched her
slip into the stewardess get-up - fresh white panties beneath a crisply pressed
blue dress. Throwing back the covers, I let her see my reaction, knowing she
couldn't resist. Pulling the panties off, she let me fuck her again with the
rest of her uniform still on. In front of the mirror she twisted around,
frowning at the spot we'd made on the back of her skirt. She had to quickly
change into the tight-fitting navy-blue slacks. She hated them even though I
told her over and over how great her ass looked in them. When she modeled for
me I started to grow hard again, only now she really was late; anything else
would have to wait. Siting up in bed and looking out the window, I watched her
get into the cab in front of her apartment, flinging her flight bag in ahead,
then the last thing I saw, her shapely legs swinging in and the door slamming
after.Once I asked her if she knew anything about the mile-high club, and if she was a
member. "Yeah, I slept with a guy in Denver once." She stared at me deadpan
for a second before bursting out laughing the way she always did. After
admitting the thing in Denver had actually happened years ago she consoled me by
giving me her 'first class service' which consisted of my sitting back in her
leather armchair, sipping scotch out of a plastic cup while she knelt before me
and delivered a spectacular blowjob.The first tow-truck on the scene was woefully inadequate. It would take a small
crane to right the fallen truck or even drag it out of the way enough to clear
one of the lanes. At least cops were on the scene, although all they could do
was flap their arms uselessly. Rain had begun to fall. I imagined Michiko
stamping her foot impatiently. Maybe she had gone to the coffee shop where we
often met. I could see her, all bedraggled from walking in the rain, resting
her chin on her hand, wondering what happened to me. A larger truck came after
what seemed like another hour of waiting and several men got out to grapple with
cables and winches. The rain had stopped but the sky was still lead-gray and
oppressively overcast.Surely Michiko had gone by now. Her flight would be leaving soon. She was
probably in the shower, letting the stinging needles of water wipe out the chill
she had gotten waiting for me in the cold wind and rain. I imagined the water
striking her chest, pouring in a rivulet between her breasts and down the small
of her back, sending a miniature waterfall tumbling off her ass. I let my head
rest on the steering wheel as the first attempt to right the truck failed and
the bridge deck shook when it crashed back down onto the pavement.A plane flew over. I couldn't make out the airline. The underside was a
featureless silver-gray. I could see a seam running lengthwise from tail to
nose. I imagined Michiko in the plane passing directly overhead. Looking up, I
could see through the metal skin into the cabin and up under her dress, to the
seam of her nylons, her fresh white panties, to the outer, the inner lips to her
vagina, softly pressed together forming a dark line.The plane climbed sluggishly, like a man fighting his way up from deep water or
out of a dream. It shuddered beneath the weight of the dark clouds until,
disappearing from my sight, it burst through into the bright sunlight above.
Fin
Richard Rivers
12/99