The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 5 (40 page)

Lewis cautiously peered into the cup of thin, dark sauce and sniffed it. He shrugged, and in a single, smooth motion, he poured it over the pile of slender brown noodles set before him. The sauce flooded through the noodles and out from under the red lacquer box that was their home. Lewis twitched slightly as the cold sauce soaked through his trousers. His fellow travelers froze. Half of them tensed, ready to be chased out of the restaurant by a katana-wielding chef. The other half choked on suppressed laughter.

The Japanese said nothing, only blinked at the silly gaijin, and continued their meals. A waitress rushed over with a washcloth. May, the ever-nonplussed tour guide, offered Lewis her napkin. A flurry of apologies and reassurances in Japanese and English thickened the air.

“Mr Hoffman,” said May, “Dip the soba in the sauce next time. One mouthful at a time.”

“Yes. Well. Maybe next time we should just tie my hands behind my back and let me bury my face into whatever is put before me. It will be only slightly less embarrassing.”

May smiled and touched his arm. This small touch managed to wipe his brain of the incident entirely. He would’ve joyfully rammed edamame up his nose if only she would consent to keep her fingers there.

Lewis had not traveled much, even though he was a cartographer by trade. He made maps; he didn’t use them to go places. Leave the data collection to the graduate students. Why should he get his hands dirty? He did the same thing day in and day out, each week a replica of the one before it. Get up, go to work, eat a microwave burrito and fall asleep in front of the TV. His life was smooth and precise, as unwavering as the lines of latitude.

The inspiration for this trip had come in December. One day, Lewis went to the bank and found that all the doors were locked. This was strange for a Wednesday. He stared hard at his reflection in the glass, and saw himself surrounded by piles of white. He turned around and noticed, for the first time, that everything was covered in snow. He checked the calendar function on his watch and saw that it was the 25th. Lewis couldn’t recall autumn. He felt ill.

Lewis had some vacation time to use. He decided to go someplace exotic, to shock himself out of his stagnation, but knew he wouldn’t get very far on his own. Still, he had mixed feelings about taking a tour. He didn’t want to get stuck following a stiff itinerary with whiney retirees wearing their pants hiked up to their tits.

After a brief search, he got a good deal on a package to Japan with a small local company called Chawan Tours. It offered modest-sized groups, a relaxed pace, and plenty of time to wander on one’s own, just what he was looking for. Japan! The other side of the world! Everything would be different there: the food, the language, the architecture, and with any luck, himself.

Lewis’s expectations of the tour company were surpassed. The guide, May, was an inspiration. It was as if she had just stepped out of a pulp fiction paperback, the brilliant and daring heroine in a crisp white shirt that never stained and khakis that never wrinkled. One got the impression that she could go anywhere and do anything. As a guide, she had a gentle touch. She was happy to let her charges make their own discoveries and their own mistakes. She stood calmly aside and assisted only if asked, or if, presumably, the situation was life threatening. One could easily imagine her inside of a ramen shop calmly sipping beer while Godzilla gobbled up busloads of salarymen a block away.

Lewis took a liking to her immediately. She was cool and self-possessed. She was quiet, too, which lent an air of mystery to her. Lewis developed an astounding crush on her over the course of the tour. Every night he dreamt of her. He shut his eyes and she wrestled crocodiles, scaled mountains, drank whiskey straight from the bottle, took him to bed.

Lewis awoke every morning with an erection that taunted him, for these were dreams and would remain so. He was shy. He was smart and happy-go-lucky, too, but these qualities tended to fail him just when needed most. He became clumsy both linguistically and kinetically before the object of his desire. Awkwardness is generally not something women look for in a man, he found.

But this day, in the restaurant, the gods were in a good mood, and they smiled upon Lewis as he stood there with wet pants. Sometimes, making an ass of oneself does not destroy one’s chances for romance. Rather, it is one’s opportunity to prove how charming and gracious one can be under such circumstances. And so Lewis did not lose love but encourage it by the Soba Incident.

The next day the group had some free time in the afternoon and split up. Lewis stood on the street as usual wrestling with an armful of tourist brochures, all half unfolded, as if he was inventing a new and particularly ugly school of origami.

“Mr Hoffman.”

Lewis started. May was beside him. She had taken a special interest in him, or so Lewis imagined. Maybe it was just that obvious he needed more guidance than the others, lest he walk grinning into an open manhole.

“I could show you a garden of such intoxicating beauty that you will never want to leave it. Unless, of course, you have other plans?”

He followed her. At first, they didn’t talk much. May apparently had no need to speak, and Lewis was so busy trying to think of something clever to say that he was rendered completely dumb. This did not escape May’s notice, and she began to ask him a series of questions. “Where are you from? Where do you work? What do you think of the beer here?” The gentle small talk put Lewis at ease. How else can a friendship begin? But Lewis could not wait to get past these preliminaries. He wanted to know why she was so quiet and so cool. He wanted to know what she dreamt about. He wanted to know what she looked like when she was asleep. He wanted to know what she looked like in the shower. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to trade secrets with her. The world seemed different when May was near. It engaged him, he saw that he was a part of it, not some disembodied imp amusing himself by reducing it to two dimensions, and for once, he wanted to see more of it.

They left the crowded sidewalks behind and followed a path through a quiet wood. Fallen needles and moss absorbed all sound. They reached a tiny gatehouse, and May gave the monk inside some coins. He handed her a brochure, which she passed over to Lewis.

The temple grounds were built on a narrow strip of land ascending the side of a mountain. Switchbacks cut through a meticulous garden with forest on either side. It was quiet and peaceful. How could such a place exist in this world? It was heartachingly beautiful.

They reached the uppermost boundary of the grounds and sat on a worn stone bench. The view overlooked the city and the mountains on the other side of it.

“I hope,” said May, “that there is a place like this inside each one of us. And I hope we each find it.” She turned her eyes from the distant peaks and looked at Lewis, who met her gaze. He had been transfixed by her, not the view.

Those eyes. So much to explore in those lovely dark eyes. “I hope so, too,” he said softly. She smiled.

They descended. Along the way, May told him the names of the plants and pointed out the techniques that brought out certain effects in the garden. “I learn something new every time I come here,” she said.

For the rest of the tour, whenever the group had free time, Lewis went with May. She took care to instruct him, and she intervened whenever he was about to do something that would give the Japanese a hilarious story to tell their friends over tea. This was fairly often.

“You’re a good man, Mr Hoffman,” May said. “You just need a little guidance.”

On the last day, May escorted everyone to the airport. She was not returning with them to the US, but was off to see what sort of trouble she could get into in Southeast Asia before making her way back to the States.

The group had a farewell drink together. When the boarding call for their flight came over the intercom, Lewis tried to say something to May and failed. I had a wonderful time, thanks to you, he thought. “Um, er, I’ll be going now,” is what he said. He followed this with a series of unintelligible gurgling noises, the music of his nervous self-loathing. He had gone on this trip in the first place to wake himself up with an unapologetic slap, and here he was at the end of it, the same clumsy idiot who began it.

He fumbled with his bag as a language he had never heard before poured out of his mouth. He wondered if perhaps aliens had abducted him when he was a child, and the long-dormant brain-implant of an extra-terrestrial tongue was only now becoming active. He looked into May’s dark eyes, and his heart crumbled.

May grabbed him by the collar and kissed him. Lewis’ command of English was restored, and they agreed to meet each other in their native land. Lewis could have ripped up his plane ticket and soared home on love.

Back in the States, a romance swiftly blossomed between Lewis and May. They took great pleasure in unraveling one another’s mysteries, and they found that they complemented one another. Lewis borrowed May’s sense of adventure, and she borrowed his calm. She was fascinated by his lack of restlessness, something she had never known.

Lewis still dreamt about May, but his morning erections no longer taunted him, because he got to go to bed with her in real life, too. She was a passionate and generous lover. Lewis felt very lucky. And very awkward. Shyness, it would seem, had invited itself along for a ménage à trois.

“Is there anything you’d like to try?” she asked him. “What can I do for you? I’ll do anything.”

This was hard for Lewis. There he was in bed with an amazing woman who had put herself at his command. He imagined all the jerks who had picked on him through school, and the women who wouldn’t even give him the time of day. If only they could see him now. He was so happy. And so in love. And so paralyzed.

He couldn’t think of a single thing to say. A thousand dreams and fantasies lingered in his brain and pestered him at all hours when he was apart from May. His penis felt harder than it had ever been before. Lewis was certain that when he finally came to orgasm, his entire flushed body would come out of his cock, and there would be nothing left of him. He craved this annihilation, and his body screamed at him to say something, anything!

May was silent. She caressed his face. Lewis could barely make out her mouth in the darkness. Was she frowning? He had to speak up.

“I don’t know,” he creaked. Oh, charming, Lewis. You’ll be shown the way out now.

“Let’s make it multiple choice, then. I could: a, suck your dick; b, fuck you; or c, give you a hand job.”

Lewis mustered up the courage for a weakly whispered “b”, and she happily rolled a condom down his cock, climbed on top of him and fucked away.

He loved to have her on top. He didn’t have to worry about his performance, his inexperience, or his shyness. She fucked and he responded. He could open his eyes and see how pretty she was, reach up and touch her soft breasts, watch them swinging and bouncing as she went to work on him. It felt good. Really, really good.

This sort of positive conditioning worked wonders over time. Eventually, she could ask him what he wanted and he’d answer. At first, it was always the same thing, but later he branched out a bit. He became more comfortable using dirty words. Being able to say, “I want to come between your tits,” was reliably rewarded, and while the words slowly lost their shame, they never lost their erotic power.

One night. May confessed to him that she had never really enjoyed being on top before she met him. She used to feel too vulnerable, ungraceful. She trusted him and felt so safe with him, she explained. He seemed to like it so much, and she was eager to please him. Lewis was incredulous. How could May ever lack confidence in anything? It was a sweet confession. Things were going well, and Lewis was very happy.

It was true: things were going well – for Lewis. But having lunch in a restaurant one day, when May told him that she was thinking of breaking up with him, it occurred to him that he hadn’t really considered if she was happy.

“You don’t know my favorite position, do you? You never ask me how I want to be pleased. You never give me multiple choice. Why is it always up to me to initiate sex and make all the decisions in bed? I don’t know if we’d ever fuck if I didn’t shanghai you into bed. We probably wouldn’t be sitting here at all if I hadn’t lost my patience and kissed you in the airport bar. Don’t you find me attractive?”

Lewis sat there stupefied and ashamed, gazing into his soup. The icy grip of panic tightened around his throat. She thinks I’m a terrible lover and she’s going to leave me! He thought of all the times he had been mysteriously, coldly dumped, without explanation and without ceremony. Well, truthfully, he had only dated a handful of women, and he hadn’t made it into the sack with most of them. No, he could quite successfully repel women without going to bed with them, thank you very much.

Lewis wasn’t demonstrative enough, and he knew it. They were lovers and he treated her with all the emotional tenderness of a distant cousin. He felt worlds of joy when she was at his side, and he hadn’t shown her even one of them. He’d never given her flowers. He’d never given her much of anything. He’d never said, “I love you.” Let’s face it, Lewis. Dating you is like dating a slab of cement, only with less feeling.

Even now, Lewis said nothing. “You’re losing me! Don’t you care?” May shouted. He had never heard her raise her voice before. He kept staring at his soup, too sad to even move. May left the table. She did not return.

The next two weeks felt like years.

Sometimes there was simply sadness. The strength of Lewis’ love for May became the strength of his grief. When he could bring himself to eat, the food tasted like he was chewing on a mouse pad. He had trouble sleeping. He moved slowly. His muscles ached. Lewis thought of what he had lost, and he became angry with himself. That he should be so careless, so cowardly! He was a worm. He hurled an endless stream of insults at the mirror. “May deserves so much better than you,” he snarled.

Then there was frustration. He sent her e-mail and left messages on her answering machine. His words were, alas, as lame as ever. “So, just wondering how you’re doing,” he’d say. He cringed even as the words came out of his mouth.