33

How was life now that Haruka was back?

To be honest, it was kind of a relief having her back.

A relief?

At first, yes. We still fought, of course. Bickered about trivial things day-in, day-out, but there was a comfortable predictability in all of it.

You really are a glutton for punishment, Peadar.

Perhaps, yes. But, in spite of my wife’s other faults, no one ever lavished souvenirs on me quite like Haruka would in those days. 

Oh?

I’ll never forget the hundred-dollar bottle of Reserva de la Familia Cuervo she gave me that year. It became my new standard for tequila.

Something to numb you with then.

It helped.

But then the novelty of Haruka being around started to wear off, didn’t it?

A bottle of tequila only lasts so long.

And Xiuying called, asking if you’d like to have dinner.

I don’t know if it is a Chinese thing, or just Xiuying, but from then on whenever I approached her she would pull back, and whenever I retreated, she would strike. Anyways, Xiuying and I met in town and when I asked what she was hungry for, she said, “You!” So, we skipped dinner altogether and headed to the nearest “rabuho” where we screwed like cats for the next four hours.

Xiuying had gotten divorced by then, hadn’t she?

Yeah, and had gotten her permanent residence visa, too, which got me thinking: if a Chinese woman with a loser for a husband could get it, then, by gum, I so could I!

Boys, be ambitious!

Yes, well, speaking of ambition, Xiuying was working for what the Japanese call a “shōsha”,[1] a trading company, during the day to learn the business and build contacts, and in the evenings and on weekends she was building her own business. She had become increasingly independent and confident. Success was not a matter of if but how soon. As I lay next to her, I liked to think that I had something to do with . . . 

You? You think youhad a hand at Xiuying’s success, Peadar?

Well, I . . . 

You had nothing to do with it whatsoever, Peadar. Xiuying would succeed in spite ofyou, not thanks to you.

You’re probably right.

Probably?

You are right.

And Xiuying would end up being as unreliable a lover to you as you had been to her.

She could be frustratingly unpredictable, but then I probably deserved it.

Probably?

I deserved it.

Peadar, I think there’s hope for you, yet.

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[1]A shōsha (商社) is a trading company. Many wholesalers in Japan will import goods through shōsha rather than import the products themselves to avoid all the hassles involved in bringing foreign products or commodities to Japan.

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.

23

A year had passed since Xiuying and you had last met and as she stood at the entry of your apartment, looking more gorgeous than ever, you could barely hide your excitement.

I had always been attracted to her, always wondered what would happen if we were ever alone together, and now here we were, just the two of us. I was tempted to pull her right in and start tearing away at her clothes.

My mouth dry, I wheeze for Xiuying to come on in.

As she steps in, she locks the door behind herself. I disappear into the kitchen and make some tea, if anything to hide that divining rod of an erection of mine.

Taking a seat at my dining room table, Xiuying asks how married life is treating me.

“Never better,” I say. It is a lie—Haruka and I just had another epic fight that morning. “And, you?”

She replies that her husband resigned from his company and is going to start an importing business. She sounds excited about it.

By the time the tea is ready, my friend “Paddy” has calmed down enough for me to safely venture out of the kitchen. I sit down across from Xiuying and ask how I can help her.

“I want to study in America . . .”

“America?”

“What does your husband think about that?”

“I haven’t told him yet,” she says with a titter.

Xiuying goes on, saying she needs to improve her English first so that she can get a good score on the TOEFL and GRE. The usual spiel. I have already helped so many people with similar goals that I have considered starting a consulting business.

She pulls a textbook out of her bag to show me what she has been studying. She is already half way through the thick text and it is obvious that she has been poring over it: pages are dog-eared and highlighted, memos in Chinese and Japanese are written throughout. She says she is going to take the tests in the autumn, so she only has about half a year left to prepare.

“If you keep up the good work, I don’t think there is any reason why you won’t get the score you want.”

“I’m so relieved to hear that,” she says in well-rehearsed, yet faltering English. “But, I need help with my pronunciation.”

It’s true: she won’t be winning any diction contests.

“Tell you what: why don’t we teach each other?” I suggest.

“What do you mean?”

I had been studying Chinese for a few years and needed more practice. I couldn’t think of a more enjoyable way to learn how to get my tongue around Chinese words than over tea with Xiuying.

And so, it was agreed: you would meet every Thursday afternoon, spend forty-five minutes speaking in English, forty-five in Chinese.

Only, it didn’t quite work out as I expected.

To put it mildly.

Once we had taken care of business, I told Xiuying about some CADD[1] software I had bought and asked if she wanted to see it.

Xiuying, though, was more interested in seeing something else first.

Well, Xiuying had never used the Internet before—few people had at the time, come to think of it—and asked to see the Internet, instead. As I was showing her some of the fun stuff you could do online—Mind you, this was a decade before Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, even before Google . . .

“Can you see . . .,” Xiuying says with a tinge of embarrassment, “pornography?”

“Porn? Why the Internet is virtually powered by porn,” I exclaim.

And with a clickety-click-click, a picture of a naked woman reveals itself, scrolling down one painfully slow line at a time. When the woman’s nipples finally appear, Xiuying squeals with childish delight and squeezes my arm.

“What else can you see,” she asks, barely able to control her excitement.

I open up a new window and, clickety-click-click, a photo of a woman fellating a man starts scrolling down.

More titillated screams explode from Xiuying. She is now clutching onto my arms and squirming beside me. We look at a few more pictures and the next thing I know we are rolling on the floor, kissing like we’re the first couple to discover it. And I’m thinking, “I shouldn’t be doing this, I shouldn’t be doing this, I am a married man, I am a married man, I am a . . .”

But I can’t stop myself. I pull the sweater over her head, undo the bra and bury my face in her gorgeous breasts.

If it weren’t for the doorbell, announcing the arrival of my next student, the two of us would probably have had sex right then and there on my dining room floor.

[1] CADD stands for Computer-Aided Design and Drafting.

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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.

21

Half a year later, you and Haruka were married.

Legally, yes. We submitted the paperwork.

Your wedding, however, wouldn’t be held until ten months later in the summer of ‘98. Just long enough for the doubts to start niggling at the back of your mind. And then Xiuying would re-enter your life.

Xiuying . . . Must all my regrets have the name of a woman attached to them?

Beautiful, talented, and coquettish, Xiuying was the thing which men’s fantasies were made of, wasn’t she, Peadar?

Was she ever!

Xiuying sat down next to you in one of your classes at the university and asked if you minded sharing your text with her.

Minded? I couldn’t have been happier to have the best-looking woman on campus choose me of all people to sit next to.

Throughout class your legs and arms touched, her breath was like warm kisses on your neck . . .

Gabriel García Márquez once described the feeling as “un terror delicioso”, a delicious terror. I was still single at the time, but engaged to Haruka. I had broken up once and for all with Akané, had resolved to lead an honest, upstanding life. And then, this gorgeous Chinese woman sits next to me in class, filling my heart with so much desire I thought it would explode.

The two of you would get on like a house on fire.

We most certainly would.

And you’re still smoldering today.

Yeah, well . . . The Japanese have a saying: ten wa ni butsu-o ataezu.[1] It implies that an intelligent girl will often be homely; and a beautiful girl, dimwitted. But as far as I could tell, Xiuying had it all going for her: looks, brains, wits, a talent for languages and the arts. Heaven had lavished blessings upon her.

She also had the ambition to do something with all that talent.

Xiuying was only twenty-three or so but already married to a much older man, a Japanese salaryman she had met when she was an undergrad. She had been working evenings as a hostess in some cabaret in Nakasu at the time. He was a regular customer, the kind of idiot that pays a hundred dollars a pop just to drink watered-down Japanese whiskey and chat with beautiful women for a few hours. The man proposed to her on their first date and she said no. He asked her again and she said no. He continued to ask her over the next several months and it was only after promising her, among other things, that he would permit her to continue with her studies that she agreed to marry him.

And they lived happily ever after.

When I first met her, she did seem happy. It was another one of the reasons why I never contemplated doing anything more with that lust of mine than give into “the ol’ lascivious hand”.[2] But, we did become friends of a sort and would chat over coffee after school or have lunch together every now and then. It wasn’t too surprising, then, that she would phone me one day out of the blue.

She called and said, “This is Xiuying. Do you remember me?” And you replied, “Xiuying! How could I ever forget you?” When she told you she had a favor to ask, you were all ears.

My ears weren’t the only things to prick up.

Droll, Peadar, very droll.

[1] 天は二物を与えず (Ten-wa ni butsu-o ataezu) Lit. “Heaven does not bestow two blessings.”

[2] See A Woman’s Nails.

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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.