Yoko
Yoko busied herself in the kitchen putting breakfast on the table for her
husband and daughter. As usual, the family couldn't agree on anything. He
wanted Japanese style - soup, some of last night's rice with fish - while
Michiko wanted oatmeal. Yoko added miso to the soup while keeping an eye out so
the oatmeal didn't burn. All she wanted for herself was black coffee.From the kitchen window, she could see the Bay Bridge rising out of the fog.
Somewhere below, Jonathan was making his way towards her, shouldering through
the crowd, damp wind whipping the tails of his overcoat as he trudged up a hill.
Or perhaps he was sitting in a coffeehouse reading a book, engulfed by steam,
cigarette smoke, and the damp mist that billowed in every time the door opened.Yoko's thighs tingled where the rough curly hair on his legs would rasp when
they fucked. Her hand absently slid along the countertop. Hard muscles under
smooth skin.Behind her, Michiko was saying something. Yoko knew she should have been
listening - something about school, ballet class - but her thoughts were divided
between Jonathan moving inexorably through the city towards her and the steaming
pots on the stove.After breakfast, Yoko occupied herself seeing her husband and daughter out the
door on time with everything they needed - briefcase, lunchbox, last night's
homework. When the door closed behind them the apartment suddenly became quiet.After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she sat at the kitchen table watching the
steam rise up from it, coiling as it disappeared. She wanted to think about
Jonathan and the things they would do together that afternoon but her husband
came to mind instead. When had he stopped kissing her goodbye? Certainly, long
before they had come to America. Beyond that, Yoko couldn't say.They met while she was still in college. He was a brilliant young professor who
also happened to be handsome and single. As his graduate assistant, Yoko found
herself in the enviable position of working with him closely, but while all the
other girls flirted with him, she hung back. She never considered herself smart
or beautiful enough to be worthy of him, and she certainly didn't want to seem
foolish, acting the way the other girls did. It surprised Yoko more than anyone
when he began to take an interest in her. Unwittingly, she had hit on the
perfect strategy for attracting his attention.Before they married their relationship was full of passion and excitement. As
new lovers they found it hard to keep away from each other and they often had
sex at work or in other semi public places. For Yoko, the fear of discovery
added to the intensity of their lovemaking. In his office, with students
waiting just outside the door, his hands were all over her; on her breasts, her
thighs; hot kisses on the nape of her neck, running up the back of her legs.
After pulling off her panties, he carried her to his desk where they made love
with all their clothes on. Knowing someone might have knocked or come in at any
time, Yoko had the most intense orgasms of her life. Sometimes he pulled her
into a closet or a stairwell, pushing her to her knees with one hand while
undoing his pants with the other. At first, Yoko was unsure what to do with an
erect penis literally shoved in her face, but she put her mind to the task and
soon improved her skills. She went so far as to rent pornography on her own
time in order to see what those girls did to please a man. After careful study
and regular practice, Yoko felt confident she could perform as well as any of
them.Once they married things changed, although on the surface all seemed well. Yoko
had no complaints about their love life even if much of the spontaneity had gone
out of it. Spontaneous sex felt silly when they had a comfortable bedroom to go
home to. After graduating, she chose not to pursue a career because Michiko was
already on the way; they began to see less of each other as her husband became
absorbed with his career and she with caring for their daughter. Yoko couldn't
help feeling left behind as his world expanded and hers contracted. They were
no longer as close as they had once been, and in time, she began to wonder if he
had found a lover.Moving to America only made matters worse. After her husband accepted the
teaching position at UC Berkeley Yoko found herself cut off from her friends and
family. She hardly spoke the language and her world closed in on her like the
fog that so often descended on the city. Even though she lived in the midst of
San Francisco, on the edge of a continent-sized country, it seemed to Yoko that
her whole life had become compressed into the one tiny apartment. She felt
trapped with her husband and daughter. In a short time she became restless and
unhappy. She resented her husband.Yoko hadn't been actively looking for an affair; she wouldn't have known where
to begin. It happened unexpectedly, like a bolt of lightning out of a clear
blue sky.At the end of the first term, her husband brought Yoko and Michiko to the
department Christmas party so they could meet the people he worked with. Yoko
felt ill at ease among so many jovial strangers. The casual way Americans
treated each other made her uncomfortable. They called each other by their
first names - even people they hardly knew. Keeping track of all the new faces
proved difficult for her. Everyone looked the same and their odd sounding names
flew out of her head the minute she heard them.Her husband made the rounds, introducing his colleagues one by one. Yoko paid
no special attention to the man until Michiko pulled at her dress."Mommy! He has a tail, like a horse!"
Yoko quickly shushed her daughter who was pointing and laughing at a man
standing nearby. Although the girl had been speaking in Japanese, it was
obvious she found his ponytail comical. Mortified by the girl's behavior, Yoko
tried to think of the appropriate words for an apology but she had already
forgotten his name. To make matters worse, what little English she knew
deserted her under pressure.The man smiled at Michiko, unconcerned with whatever the girl had said about
him. He was tall, with broad shoulders and blond hair in the ponytail that had
caught Michiko's attention. Yoko couldn't have imagined someone who looked more
foreign. Sensing her attention on him, he looked up and she found herself
gazing into the most startling pair of eyes she had ever seen - gray eyes shot
through with white, like waves on the ocean. She stared into those eyes, unsure
what to make of them, captivated. There was something hard and steely just
below the surface, out of place with his friendly expression; as if the light
behind them had been blocked - the sun passing behind a cloud. Yoko felt the
shadow fall over her. She shivered.Unaware of his effect on her, the man asked Yoko to translate what Michiko had
said. He spoke in a friendly tone, but the look in his eyes made Yoko so
flustered she had to turn to her husband to have him explain it. He made a joke
about his daughter's behavior and his wife's poor command of the language and
everyone laughed. For a moment Michiko became the center of attention while
Yoko remained silent, feeling humiliated. Glancing up at him, she noticed the
man's eyes had never left her. When he saw her looking at him again he gave her
a little smile.Over the next few weeks, Yoko could not get the image of the man's eyes out of
her mind. She found excuses to drop in at the University whenever she could so
that she might run into him again.His name was Jonathan, and their first meetings were tentative. They had few
words in common, but Yoko knew they both felt that something unspoken had been
communicated between them. When their eyes met, her breath caught in her
throat, and she blushed like a schoolgirl. From his body language, she knew
Jonathan felt something too, but he was holding back, keeping her at arm's
length; her husband was a colleague of his after all. Jonathan always treated
her politely and with formality although Yoko noticed his eyes looking her over
with an unsettling intensity when he thought she wasn't looking.Yoko knew her husband's lecture schedule and she often arranged to be on campus
when he was busy, leaving her free to be alone with Jonathan. When they were
together, they did little but pass the time, as if they both knew they were only
delaying the inevitable. One day, he gave her a tour of the laboratories,
telling her the English names for the equipment she already knew in Japanese.
Another time, he bought her coffee in the cafeteria and they sat, not saying
much, looking out the window. On a sunny afternoon, they had a long,
torturously slow conversation on a bench near the clock tower.When she was alone, Yoko thought about him often, but she found it odd that she
could not say whether she found him attractive or not. She could scarcely even
remember what he looked like when she tried to conjure up his image. Tall,
blonde, an exotic-looking foreigner - but those were only words. The man was
something more. Those eyes - haunting gray eyes she could never forget - they
were impossible to read; soft as clouds, but with the hardness of steel in them;
laughing eyes, but colored with the shadow of sadness.One night Yoko dreamed of those eyes roaming over her body, penetrating her
clothing, laying her bare. She could feel them, like feathers, or very soft
fingers turning her over and over until every part of her body had been touched.
Yoko came awake in the middle of the night, unable to move, her mind racing as
the eyes continued their gentle probing. Part of her pleaded silently for them
to stop, but that part of her was slowly overwhelmed. She felt like she was
drowning, surrendering herself to the warmth of the water, its softness, letting
it flood into the last part of her with the will to resist, dissolving, until
she felt herself becoming one with it. The eyes sent out shoots, like tendrils
that moved over her body; her face; her breasts and thighs; her clitoris.
Gently spreading the lips to her vagina, they entered her and swelled, until she
was full with them, bursting from them. As Yoko lay beside her sleeping husband
a shocking orgasm swept over her, lifting her through the air, shuddering,
arching her back until she collapsed on the bed, her chest heaving and every
muscle in her body vibrating.The next morning, she took a long hot bath, put on a new dress and got into her
car. Driving on the wrong side of the road the way Americans did made her
uneasy. She rarely took the car out, and when she did, she hugged the curb
lane, going well below the speed limit. That morning Yoko felt the need to be
daring. Crossing the bay bridge, she rolled down her window and let the cold
foggy air stream into the car. She drove fast, changing lanes, passing cars on
either side. By the time she reached Oakland her hair was a tangled mess
whipping across her face and she was laughing.On campus, she spent half an hour walking outdoors trying to calm down and
making sure her husband would be in his lecture before she entered the
department. When she got there, she found Jonathan's door closed. Yoko stood
in the hall staring at the frosted glass window, wondering whether or not to
knock. She began to lose her nerve. What if everything she imagined about
Jonathan had been wrong? It could have all been wishful thinking on her part.
Maybe he had only treated her with kindness because of her husband. And what
about her dream? That's all it was, a dream; it meant nothing. Yoko stayed by
the door, going over everything they had done together, everything he had said,
looking for a sign that would tell her she wasn't crazy for feeling the way she
did.Yoko had never seduced a man before. She had always been the object of amorous
advances, never the instigator. How do men do it, she wondered? How do they
time the leap from friendship to something more intimate? Up until now,
everything between her and Jonathan had been so proper, so polite. She sensed
there was something more, or at least hoped there was, but the only way to find
out for certain would be to make the leap, and she was beginning to feel as if
she didn't have the courage to go through with it.There were footsteps in the hall. Yoko wanted to turn away from the door before
anyone saw her waiting there, but before she could move Jonathan rounded the
corner. His eyes were down, examining a sheaf of papers in his hands. And he
didn't notice her. On seeing him, all her doubts vanished. Yoko knew she
wanted him; she would find the courage to do whatever she needed.Jonathan didn't look up until he had nearly run into her.
"Oh, hello," he said, in a voice that did not sound the least bit surprised.
"My, you look nice." He looked her up and down. "Do you have a lunch date?"Yoko shook her head. Her throat felt so tight she didn't trust her voice.
"Well, do you want to come in for a minute?"
She nodded again.
Inside his office, Jonathan went to the desk and began placing the papers he had
been carrying into various folders, ignoring her completely. Yoko stepped just
inside and pressed her back up against the cold metal doorjamb while she watched
him work. It took him a long time to file away his papers. She wondered if he
was doing it on purpose, waiting for her to say something, to make the first
move.She gently closed the door behind her, and he looked up when he heard the soft
rattle of the glass."Yoko, what is it?"
She still had not said a word to him. Looking into his eyes made her forget all
her English. If she tried speaking now she would lose her nerve again and she
would end up talking herself out of it. She had to act before she thought about
it any more. In two quick steps she was pressed against him.They kissed with such passion that her entire body felt as if it had melted into
his. Yoko had never experienced such a kiss. Jonathan's arms clasped her
tightly about the shoulders, pressing her breasts into him. He was so much
taller she had to stand on tiptoes in order to reach his lips. She felt light
in his arms, as if she might float away if he let go of her.They kissed until her lips felt thick and bruised. She wanted to please him
even more, to satisfy him completely. Breaking away from the kiss, she sank
down, growing heavy in his arms until she was kneeling before him. When she
touched his belt, he protested."Yoko...wait. What are you doing? The door...it's not locked..."
But she didn't stop, didn't look up at him or say a word. She didn't want to
talk now. She was tired, so tired of wrestling with this strange, unnatural
language, never knowing what to say, always using the wrong word. There was
only one thing she wanted to do with her mouth, her lips, her tongue; it would
be soundless, so easy and direct, with no possibility of misunderstanding. The
only sound would come from him when she made him cry out in ecstasy.Jonathan continued protesting as she undid his belt and trousers, but his hands
had given up. No longer trying to lift her by the shoulders, they were resting
lightly on the back of her head, stroking her hair. When she freed him from his
shorts, Yoko knew he wasn't going to resist her any longer. His erection stood
straight out, the sure sign of his arousal. She touched his balls, soft and
heavy. Lifting them gently with her fingers, making him shudder.Yoko knew she could surprise him with her skill. For all he knew, she was a shy
Japanese housewife with little experience. He would have no way of knowing that
she had worked hard learning how to please a man in this way. She decided to
show him, but not all at once. Starting slowly, tentatively, as if she hardly
knew what to do, she teased him; first licking the underside of his shaft, then
taking just the head into her mouth. When her lips closed around him, she could
feel the blood rushing in, making him swell. His legs twitched - he wanted to
drive himself deeper into her but he held back, not wanting to force himself on
her, and Yoko continued to tease him until the twitching in his thighs and
pelvis had become a constant trembling throughout his body. She looked up at
him, but his gray eyes were hidden, closed tightly; his head had rolled back.
Closing her own eyes, she slowly, very slowly, took him in.Jonathan was bigger than her husband or any man she had been with before. At
first, Yoko did not know whether she could take all of him or not. "Relax,
relax, think of nothing," she told herself as she went down on him. The tip of
his cock felt hot as it slid over her tongue. When it nudged the back of her
throat, Jonathan gave an involuntary start. For an instant, Yoko panicked,
thinking she couldn't handle him, but the voice inside her returned: "throat
relaxed, mind blank," just the way she had taught herself. "Yoko...oh my
god..." she heard him say as her nose burrowed into the hard muscles of his
belly, but he sounded far away, and her concentration remained unbroken. When
she had all of him inside of her, she remained very still, holding him as long
as she could before she needed to take a breath. There was a soft tremor
shaking his body and the heavy pulsing along the entire length of his erection.
A long drawn out sound vibrated in his chest, an 'Ohh' that could have been
'Nohhh' or 'Yohhhkohhh'.Yoko touched him just behind his balls and felt the pulse of his ejaculation an
instant before her mouth filled with the warm salty sweetness. She swallowed
what she could and let the rest fill her mouth, spilling out onto her chin. She
thought of something she had learned long ago: "The softest thing in the world
defeats the hardest thing in the world." Who had said that? Buddha, Confucius?
No, it was probably someone else. Yoko had no idea anymore, but she had made it
her mantra when she first met her husband. Hers was to wait, to give, to yield,
to contain, and then this moment was hers. She held Jonathan's cock in her
mouth, felt it softening, giving up the last sweet drops. He wanted to pull
away, but she held him firmly in her lips, feeling the dying throbs of his
orgasm, knowing that now he was hers.Yoko took a sip of coffee, still warm, thick with cream. Jonathan was on his
way. Hers was to wait, to give, to yield, to contain. She pressed her thighs
together, imagining the warm slap of his ejaculation inside of her. Everything
of his she could not hold would run down her leg in a sticky rivulet.In the beginning of their affair, Yoko enjoyed the feeling of being in control.
Although she was pleasing Jonathan regularly, she knew he wanted more - to make
love, to fuck her - but she held back, only giving him what she had given the
first time. Finally she relented, to her own desire as much as his, and she let
him carry her to his desk where they made the metal legs chatter and jerk across
the hard tile floor, not caring whether anyone out in the hall might hear.Eventually, they began to meet in more comfortable surroundings - his apartment,
one of the fancy hotels downtown - and they made love in every way imaginable.
They wanted more and more of each other. Yoko began to feel afraid, knowing it
couldn't last this way forever, not sure she could live without him. She wanted
him in her own bed. He argued against it, saying it was too risky, but she
prevailed. Yoko wanted to feel her knees, her elbows pressing into the floor
through the thin futon when he took her roughly from behind; to inhale deeply
the fragrance of the tatami mat with her face pressed into it.She arranged so that on certain days Jonathan could come to the apartment when
her husband was away teaching. They had enough time to make love for several
hours in the late morning and early afternoon before she had to pick Michiko up
at school. Yoko always straightened up very carefully, making sure no signs of
their activities were left behind. No one suspected anything, she was sure of
it; nevertheless, Yoko became uneasy, tinged with sadness, feeling the end with
Jonathan was near. She did not discuss it with him, and did nothing to stop him
from coming to her house even though that would have been prudent. She wondered
if on some level she wanted for them to be caught, for everything to come out in
the open. She felt poised at a crossroads, waiting for something to happen. It
would be difficult. She imagined the scene when her husband discovered them -
coming home early one day, bursting through the door; she could imagine so many
ways that it would happen. And although she might never see Jonathan again, at
least her life would be her own again; there would be no more secrets, no more
hiding.When Jonathan arrived he was cold and damp after spending an hour walking by the
waterfront. She made him tea and then they took a stinging hot shower together.
She loved the feel of his body; his strong arms; the knotted muscles in his
back; his hard buttocks. She knelt and took his cock into her mouth and held
it, feeling the warm water pelt her forehead, his warmth inside of her.On the futon, neither of them felt in the mood to be aggressive. Perhaps it was
the weather. Feeling sleepy, they began a slow, languid fuck. Yoko brought her
knees up so that he might penetrate her more deeply. His thrusts were deep and
regular, moving the entire length of himself in and out of her. Grasping him
with her thighs, feeling the rasp of his rough skin, the hard muscles beneath
coil and uncoil, Yoko timed the rhythm of her body to his.Jonathan's head lay buried in the pillow beside her head. As his thrusts became
more urgent, she could hear the deep muffled groan that came out of him. His
motions were spasmodic and trembling. His cock knifed in and out of her until
she felt his whole body go rigid. Yoko shuddered as she felt the throb of him
coming inside of her, then the warm ticklish flood of his release that followed.He breathed heavily, his chest pressing her deeply into the mat, and Yoko
stroked his back, his shoulders and hair, soothing his trembling body. She felt
herself swimming up from the depths. She didn't want to break the surface, but
there was no helping it, and it made her sad that this moment of bliss had to be
broken so soon. She hadn't come, but that wasn't what drew her up, out of her
dreamy state. The realization came to her gradually, like the awareness of the
dawn to one who has lain awake all night; so that when she turned her head she
was not really surprised to see Michiko, her daughter, crouched in the doorway,
eyes wide, and a look of childish fascination on her face.Yoko looked into her daughter's eyes. She felt helpless and vulnerable, naked
in front of the girl, trapped by the softly heavy slab of Jonathan's body. He
was still inside of her, oozing the last warm drops of his come. He hadn't seen
the girl; his face lay buried in the pillow.Yoko closed her eyes when she heard the soft patter of feet running in the
hallway. Jonathan still hadn't heard. She clasped him more tightly, pulling
him into her. He thrust weakly and she felt herself gripping the dying
hardness, trembling as if to wring the last warm drops from him. The front door
closed softly as Michiko went out. Yoko came then, and her orgasm seemed to go
on forever. Jonathan regained some of his hardness and began fucking her,
gently riding her wave with his ebbing strength.Yoko did not tell him what had happened. While he showered and dressed she
checked the apartment to see if her daughter had really gone. When he was
ready, they parted as they always did, with few words. Only after he had gone
and she was standing alone at the kitchen sink did Yoko realize that the sun had
burned away the fog. Below her, the water of the bay glistened brightly.
Fin
Richard Rivers
12/99