Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

Circle takes the square.  The picture didn’t do this girl justice.  I was staring at God’s perfection. 

She smoothed out her plaid skirt and handed me her carry-on.  “You are Ben, right?”  I’ll take Whoopie to block.

“That would be me.”  The carry-on only weighed four hundred pounds.  My right hand dipped toward the floor.

“I could use some coffee.”  And I could use somewhere I could reside besides the shallow end of my fantasy pool.  I patiently waited for Amber to bitchslap me mentally at the two-foot mark.

“Right this way.”  She walked on ahead of me until she spied a coffee shop.  She walked in and sat down, awaiting my presence.  A waitress came over and quickly brought over two cups of coffee.  Rin started talking.

“Sara saved my life.”  I could relate.  She’d saved mine many a time.

“How so?”  I poured cream into my coffee and five packets of sugar.  Rin looked on in a look I would describe as a cross between horror and disgust.

“How much do you know about Japanese culture?  I should say, about the subcultures over there?”  She spoke wonderful, unaccented English. 

“I know nothing.  Sorry.”

“There is a subculture over there, because I don’t mean to paint all of them this way, that values the subservience of women.  A throwback to the Geisha culture.  There is a huge fetish culture in Japan.  Remember back in the old days when postcards of naked women were a big deal?”

“I’m old, Rin, but not ancient.” I looked at her for some kind of confirmation and didn’t even get a shrug.  I probably was ancient in her eyes.  She looked to be the same age as Amber.

“Well, I got thrown into the life,” Rin said.

“The life.”

“I was kidnaped.  Forced into it.   I had to get out or I’d commit suicide.  You can only be hogtied so many times.” 

“I suppose.”  Hogtied?  I was way out of my element.

“The last time I was tied up and left for three days.  Some people get their kicks in different ways.  This guy was into massive pain.  I was lucky to get out alive.”  There are some things one can’t comment on in life.  This was one.  Knocking on clever’s door was a useless task during some monologues.  For once, I decided to keep my mouth shut.  The waitress came over and refilled our cups.  I was in no hurry.  Rin reached for her overnight bag.  She unzipped a zipper and pulled out a large manila envelope.  She unclasped the back of it and slid out five 8 x 10 glossy photographs.  Rin was naked in all of them, tied up into impossible poses. 

“This is what it was like,” she said.  “You know, it goes all the way back to the middle ages.  It was originally used as torture.”  A guy came cruising past the back of our table and did a double take looking down at the photos.  He looked at me.  I felt as unclean as a four-year-old on a playground.  Rin continued.

“They get girls over there as young as nine.  I’m sure it happens over here also.  In fact, I’m sure of it.  Countless little girls kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery.”  I took a sip of my coffee.  She put one of the pictures in front of me.  The rope was tied above and below Rin’s breasts in an elaborate pattern.  “This is called Shinju.”  This looked like none of the knots I learned at summer camp with the Boy Scouts.

“They have names for all this stuff?  It looks like people just tie you up willy nilly.”

“Every single rope and truss has a meaning.  This particular one makes the breasts and nipples very sensitive. Shinju.  It means, the pearls.”  Bondage 101 being taught to me by a twenty-year old. 

“Rin, no offense, but why are you telling me all this?”

“Because Sara thought you might be able to help me.” 


. . .from the novel in progress. . .Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

I felt like a damn chauffeur standing at the gate holding up a sign that said RIN.  All I needed was a cap and a white shirt.  I looked around at several other people around me.  They were all waiting for loved ones.  There were no other signs. 

Soon, people were filing off the plane.  There was an endless stream of humanity, all coming from Los Angeles, entering Cleveland from vacations or visits from relatives.  At the end of the line I waited.  No Rin.  I waited another five minutes.  Finally, I saw walking down the tunnel the only Japanese girl who had disembarked.  I was the only one left at the gate.  I held up the sign.  The girl came right up to me.  Now I felt like a fool.  She took the sign from my hands and tossed it aside.   

. . .from the novel in progress. . .Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

“Sorry, man.”  I blew smoke out and looked at Stipple.  He hadn’t had an easy life, but he made the best out of it.  Right out of the service his dad died and he raised his brothers and sisters.  His mom had died before he went into the service.  Sometimes your life is put on hold.  Sometimes it stays that way forever. “Every time he’s in it costs you some serious cheddar.”

“You know why I like talking to you, Ben?”  For some reason, Stipple and I had hit it off immediately.  I had the utmost respect for him.

“Because when I call money cheddar you know exactly what I mean?”

“Because I never have to Barney things down to you.”  That sounded like something Amber would say, not Stipple.

“Has my daughter been in here talking to you?”  Amber was always coming up with new words and phrases.  It was a habit she picked up in high school and she was always ambushing me with a word from left field or a phrase that left me in stitches.

“She’s become a wonderful young lady, Ben.”  He smiled at me.  You took a poll around town, nobody would disagree with him.

“She has, hasn’t she?  Been here?”  Amber liked stopping in the Legion to talk to Stipple.  Stipple was almost like a grandfather to her.  Sara’s father had died a couple of weeks after Amber was born.  My dad lived in Boston, but I saw him rarely.  He was a fairly successful writer and traveled the world.  We weren’t estranged.  We both lived our own lives and intersected when convenient for either of us.  Amber didn’t have a relationship with him.

“You think I’d come up with Barney things down on my own?”

“She’s a one of a kind.”  I had become accustomed to people bragging about Amber. 

“And you’re one lucky man,” he said, getting into his wallet for some more money.  Warren came over to our table and joined us.  We both looked at Warren, waiting for brilliance to emit from his mouth.

“’bout all I can take of that fucking Magruder for one day,” Warren said.  I’d be shocked as shit if Warren didn’t squeeze in one fuck per sentence.

“I hear that,” Stipple said.  He tapped out another cigarette from his pack.  “That shaved head of his. . .”

“I fucking hear that,” Warren said.  All of our hearing, apparently, wonderful.

“You’re off in space all of a sudden, Ben,” Stipple said.

“Have to leave pretty soon and go to Hopkins.”

“Waddya going to the fucking airport for?” Warren asked.

“Picking up a new roommate for my daughter.”  I was waiting.  It didn’t take long.  Warren and Stipple high-fived each other.

“I just know you got something going on at that fucking mansion of yours,” Warren said.  I looked at Stipple and Warren.

“Aren’t you getting a bit worn to be high-fiving people, Stipple?” I asked.

“When you’re my age, any appendage you can raise, you raise.”  Stipple and Warren high-fived each other again.  I wasn’t much on the high-fiving business myself.

“I think our man needs another fucking drink,” Warren said, pointing to Stipple’s empty glass.  I walked the glass up to the bar and pointed to the Jim Beam.  I came back and placed it in front of Stipple.  He nodded his thanks.

“So, what kind of a fucking model you picking up tonight?” Warren asked.

“Japanese girl,” I said.

“Ahhhhhhhh,” Stipple said.  He looked into his glass.  “You talk to war buddies and those Pacific boys say they had it all over us guys fighting the Germans.  Never did care for all that hair in the pits and legs those French girls had when I was there.  But, those Pac boys said some of those oriental girls taught them things they were pretty certain their mothers hadn’t a clue about in this lifetime.”  I didn’t even want to think what my mother knew about in terms of the bedroom.  I was just glad I was here for chrissakes, grateful she’d figured that part of it out.

“Well, how’d you like to fucking be me?” Warren asked.  “I didn’t as much as see a fucking ankle over in Desert Storm.”  They both looked at me.  For some reason Warren assumed, since I was at the Legion, I was naturally a vet of some kind.  The truth was, a friend of mine signed me up as a social member a few years back.  Now, every time Warren talked about Desert Storm, he assumed by my age I had to have been there.  It was pretty obvious I was too young to have served in Vietnam.  Warren came from a family that put a premium on military service.  It was as natural as going to college right from high school was in my family. 

“Breathing is the way I prefer them,” I said.  They both smiled and said some amens to that, brother.  I figured if Warren ever cornered me about what branch of the service I had served in, I would tell him I just couldn’t talk about it.  He’d figure it was too painful for me.  A lot of them couldn’t talk about it.  Maybe he’d figure I was CIA or some undercover bullshit.  It was one of those things I should have cleared up on day one.  Now, day nine hundred and something, I kept trying to avoid the issue. 

“Doesn’t much matter where we served,” Stipple said, “all I know is those mothers were at the ass end of one hell of a beatdown.”  He polished off his drink.  “Gotta go.  Thanks for the drink, Ben.”  Stipple got up and wobbled toward the door.

“He was in a fucking mood,” Warren said.

“Brother again.”

“Fucking Parson?”

“Parson.”

“Motherfucker.”

“Indeed.”  I gathered up my keys and cigarettes.  “I gotta run, Warren.  Have to go to the airport.”

“You fucking want me to go with you, keep you company?”  Warren had a gleam in his eye.

“Well, I appreciate your kindness, Warren, but I’m sure this girl will be nervous enough as it is.”

“I’d calm her fucking nerves.”

“I’m just quite sure you would.”  I shook his hand and walked out the door.

             

. . .from the novel in progress. . .Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

Dreamers on the Rise

Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

I looked up and saw somebody coming down the gravel path toward the house.  Amber looked up from her drink.

“Do you think you can control yourself?” Amber asked me.

“Control is needed?”

“Astrid is coming.”

“How I like the sound of that.”

“Somehow I don’t think you’re her type.”

“And her type would be?”

“Someone who might be able to pull off a pair of speedos and tighty whities a bit better than you.”

“I guarantee you, for her, I’d have no problem pulling them off.”

“Well, for a year you sure have been pulling something.”

“That’s not very fair.”  I took another drink.

“Well, your sheets haven’t been pretty.”

“There’s something just wrong about a daughter washing her dad’s sheets.”

“You’re telling me?” 

Astrid made her way up onto the deck.  She sat down directly across from me and crossed her long legs.  She sat there and said nothing.

“Uh oh,” Amber said.

“What?” I asked.  She nodded at Astrid.

“She’s in her Brazilian bitch mood.”  Astrid looked at Amber, then at me.

“Men,” Astrid said.  Wonderful.

“Men?” I asked, stupidly.  And, of course, wrongly.

“Like this one here,” Astrid said, pointing at me.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Amber said.

“Yes, I suppose,” I said.  I figured if I just agreed I couldn’t get in any trouble.  Through my life, I had found there were innumerable ways to get in trouble with women without going to any special difficulty.

“What are you agreeing for?” Astrid asked.  See.  There was never a right answer.

“General principles,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” Amber butted in.

“Men,” Astrid said.

“Established,” I said.  And couldn’t keep my damn mouth shut to save myself.

“See?”  Astrid said, pointing to me again.

“Maybe we could just start over here,” Amber said.

“I was doing this photo shoot when this photographer wanted to rearrange my thong.”  Sounded innocent to me.  But, it would.

“Go on,” I said.  Now they both stared at me.  If that wasn’t an incentive to shut up, I don’t know what.

“So, he’s rearranging it, for what in God’s name I don’t know what reason, and then he thwanked my thong like it was a rubberband.”  I was almost sure this wasn’t the time to laugh so I put my hand up to my mouth, thinking that a safe position.  Astrid was staring at me anyway.  Finally I had to say something.  Which I thought was clever, but, probably wasn’t.

“Can you say thwanked my thong three times fast?”

Astrid calmly took my gin and tonic glass into her hand and deposited the liquid over my head.   She handed me the now-empty glass and then strode off the deck.  “G.H.I., asshole.”  She went back up the path toward the main house.

 “Well, that went well,” Amber said.  She surveyed my dripping hair.  “Boy, Gin and tonic looks good on you.”

“G.H.I.?”

“Get Help Immediately.”   I sat there dripping in liquid enmity, wiping tonic from my eye, licking a drop from my upper lip.

. . .from the novel in progress. . .Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

“We’re about to get a little visit.”  Amber opened up the letter and scanned it.

“And we are to be so blessed by whom?”  I was guessing overseas models. Ones named Gisele or Frankie. 

“Rin.”  This didn’t sound exotic.  No.  This sounded like one third of a dog.

“Rin?  Let me guess.  A Japanese model?”

“No, nothing like that.  This is a relative of a friend of Kim’s.  Apparently a grandchild of one of the comfort women they located.  It’s pretty complicated.  Actually, Daddy, this is pretty serious stuff.”  I didn’t need serious in my life.

“I see.  And let me guess.  Knowing Sara, we’re rescuing her.   This . . . Rin.  Is that it?”

            “Something like that.”  Sara was a rescuer and Amber a saver.  I was a savorer.  Something possibly further down on the scale of humanity, more in the shallow end of the pool.

“She rescues more people than Mrs. Martin does dogs down at the animal shelter.  We wouldn’t happen to have just any plain normal roommates? Not plain looking ones mind you, just uneventful ones.”

“Well, if you think Shamara is hot and you drool after Astrid, perhaps I should lock you up before you get a load of Rin.”  She handed me a picture from the envelope.

I looked at the picture.  The Japanese girl was breathtaking.  I turned the picture over.  On the back Sara wrote the following:

Amber: This is Rin.

Ben: Hands off!

I turned the picture over again and then looked at Amber.  She mockingly wiped the drool off my chin.

. . .from the novel-in-progress. . .Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

Dreamers on the Rise

Amber returned from lunch and came in and sat across from me. 

     “Do you love her?” she asked.  She reached over and brushed the hair out of my eyes.  I wondered who took care of whom sometimes.  

     “Huh?” 

     “Charly.  Do you love her?”  I stared out the window.  “You know, it’s just an observation, but did you ever notice what a label whore you’ve become?”  This wasn’t on topic at all.  But, it did give me the opportunity to avoid the original question.

     “Meaning?”

     “I’ve watched you.  Since you’ve started hanging out with Charly you’ve bought fifteen Tommy shirts.  Did you know that?  You’ve started wearing Nautica.  Did you ever do that around my sister?”

     “It was different.” 

     “How so?”

     “I was. . .Sara was just. . .”  I was fumbling.  No words were rushing out offering to be the pace car for a complete sentence.  Little eddies of them were scrambling around begging for order and logic.

     “Always there?”  I looked at her.

     “You mean, like I took her for granted?”

     “No.  I’m not saying that at all.  All I’m saying is, and I’m not saying don’t explore everything with Charly–believe me–I love the girl–she’s great.  But, what I’m saying is, all this time you’ve been looking for that On Golden Pond love you were all puddling up on–and maybe you’ve been swimming in it for twenty years, treading water.  It’s possible.”  She probably made more sense than I wanted to admit.

     “A label whore, huh?  Is that in your book?”  She dug in her back pocket and flipped pages. 

     “It comes right before lack-a-nookie,” she said, peering at the page.

     “Is there a picture of me next to that one?” 

     “At least you know what the beast looks and smells like.”

     “You’re only sixteen.”

     “And probably the only virgin left in my class, you do realize that, right?” 

     “Well, I’m proud of you.” 

     “I’m touched beyond belief.  Let’s get back to your sex life, not my non-existent one.  I’m not about to give up the goods to any of the McDumbasses at my school.  I’ll just wait for the right guy, thank you very much.”

. . .from the forthcoming novel. . .Dreamers on the Rise