You promised to meet Xiuying next week for your “lesson” not at your home, but in front of Yakuin Station. Both of you knew what to expect.

There was a love hotel, an unremarkable one, a few blocks from the station called the Personal Hotel Ōmiya. I had never been, but used to walk by it once a week on my way to a teaching gig. It was simple in design, no gaudy exterior or flashing neon lights like so many love hotels have. If you didn’t catch the sign at the entrance saying the rate for a “rest” was only 4,500 yen, [1] you wouldn’t know that it was a “rabuho”, that is, a love hotel.

Your hearts beating wildly, nervously, Xiuying and you hurried off the street and ducked under a curtain concealing the parking garage.

And there was that delicious terror again . . .

After choosing a room from a lighted panel, illuminated arrows showed the way, directing you upstairs and down a hall to the den of adultery. And once inside the room, the two of you threw yourselves at one another, kissing and biting each other’s skin as if you had been starved for flesh.

We were. Xiuying hadn’t had sex with her husband for over a year—imagine that! All that beauty and sexual energy going to waste, a magnum opus left un-played. And, as for Haruka and me, well, we hadn’t exactly been setting our futon on fire with passionate love every night either. It had been months since we’d had sex.

Naked below you on the bed, Xiuying spread her legs.

I eased myself in, gently, slowly, and sounds like nothing I’d ever heard from a woman erupted from that pretty little mouth of hers. I was so turned on; it was all I could do to not come right then and there. Less than five minutes into sex, though, the orgasm boiled within me . . . I pulled out and came with such force that the ejaculate shot through the air and struck the wall a good four or five feet above the headboard. For all I know, it may still remain today with a plaque next to, stating: Another Satisfied Customer.

Thank you for that, Peadar.

I had now committed adultery, something I had hoped with all sincerity that I would never ever do. A line had been crossed and it was very frightening. How do you undo something like that?

By promising never to do it again, of course. But you did it again anyways, didn’t you? Only a week later, the two of you were at it once more. And the week after that, and the week after that . . . every Thursday afternoon. Your “private language exchange”. And it got a little less frightening each time, the fling developing into a full-fledged affair . . .

 

 

And Xiuying starts to fall in love with me, and starts talking about leaving her husband, starts saying things like, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were both single?”

And lying naked beside her, I reply flatly, “Yes, yes, it would.”

And she asks if I love her, and without emotion I say, “I do. Madly.”

She wants me to say it, so I say it four languages: “Xiuying, I love you. Aishiteiru. Je t’aime. Ich liebe dich. Wǒ zuì téng ài nǐ.”

And she holds on to me tightly, body quaking, tears flowing from her eyes.

 

 

Meanwhile, your own dry eyes were fixed on the door to the hotel room as you wondered how you might be able to put a little distance between yourself and Xiuying.

She left me with little choice. Xiuying’s relationship with her husband had started to unravel. Listen: Xiuying found out that the reason he had “resigned” from his company was because he had been caught embezzling. As for his plans of starting an importing firm, well, those never really panned out, and, because bad luck comes in threes, a tumor was found somewhere in his body. Now that he was unemployed, the poor bastard didn’t have the insurance or the cash to get it removed. Xiuying asked me if she could borrow some money, but I could never have given her the kind of money she needed without Haruka finding out. In the end, I couldn’t help him and I couldn’t help her.

Talk about fair-weather friends.

That’s just another word for arsehole.

I know.

There was more to it, though. I started to get the feeling that the woman was cursed.

Cursed?

Yes, cursed. As beautiful, talented, and intelligent as she was, Xiuying was Bad Luck Incarnate, and, go ahead, call me superstitious, but bad luck is as contagious as the flu.

Peadar?

What?

You are superstitious.

 

[1]  ¥4,500 was equivalent to about thirty-eight dollars in 1997. 

The first installment/chapter of A Woman's Hand can be found here.

A Woman's Hand and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.