Elegy
A letter from Yoko to Brian
Brian:
You will have to forgive the way I write. I don't do it often. The words come out so slowly. Each letter is like a worm wriggling its way out of a tiny hole. How many times does that little line flash at the end of one word before I can write another?
It feels odd to have you gone for so long. I hope you miss me as much as I miss you, and then I change my mind: I don't want you to be that sad. However, something happened the other day to make me think of you in a pleasant way. That is why I am writing - no other reason.
It was a hot day, the air muggy and stifling. I was waiting for the subway, which was late as usual. People began to crowd in on all sides, jostling for position on the platform. Soon we were packed in so close that if something were to happen, a panic, there would be no way out. A bead of cold sweat ran down the center of my back making me shiver. Crowds are so different here. I am used to people acting with one mind, a communal purpose, or at least a respectful tolerance of others, not this mob of individuals, each one striving against the others.
When the train finally arrived I was swept up in the frenzy of bodies pushing and shoving for a place onboard. Finding a seat was out of the question. Somehow, I grabbed a handhold only moments before the train lurched forward. We all swayed like kelp sloshed by a wave but no one fell. We were packed in too tightly.
My senses were on alert. I felt hyper-aware of the contours of the bodies pressed against me, their smells, their sounds. A man's arm blindly groping for a handhold raked across my breasts. The sensation was vivid - the way his starched cuff dug in and caught for a moment. I remembered you, the day we met at the cocktail party in San Francisco. You were reaching for a glass of wine when I first saw you. Your cuff caught for an instant on your watch revealing the dark hairs on your wrist. From that moment I knew we would become lovers, long before you noticed me watching you.
"Sorry." The man's voice was so close to my ear, more a buzz than a sound. I decided not to look because I knew it wasn't you, it couldn't be you, and I didn't want to acknowledge his accidental touch and turn it into something personal.
When he found a handhold his forearm remained pressed up against my breasts. I couldn't move; the crush was too tight. At the next station several people tried to edge past and he pressed against me to let them by. It was so reminiscent of you, the way you playfully press your crotch into me when we are in a crowd - a line, an elevator - slyly humping me in plain view with nobody the wiser. You know what that does to me. I can see it in your crafty smile. And then I can think of nothing besides your cock, quiescent, nestled away in your shorts waiting until I can get my hands on it.
The swaying of the train moved my body against his in a pleasant way. I know you are probably angry with me, or disappointed, but I couldn't get away. And besides, it has been a long time since I felt a man's firm body against my own. I was enjoying it. We shifted positions slightly so that he was directly behind me. He didn't let go of his handhold and his arm was wrapped halfway around me now, pressing on my breasts from beneath. I could feel the hard knot at his crotch burrowing into me from behind.
As a teenager, I took voice lessons. My father was crazy for Italian opera and he had the wild idea, the dream that I might have talent as a singer. Mr Yamada, my teacher, was also a friend of the family. During the lessons he would come up behind me and place his hands on my belly, just inside the pelvic bones. "Breathe from here," he said, placing his chin on my shoulder and noisily inhaling beside my ear. I let my stomach fill out beneath his splayed fingers, trembling as I drew the breath. "Fill your lungs from the bottom," he said, moving his hands up to my ribs. "Let me feel your chest expand."
"Yamada-Sensei!" I gasped when his hands cupped my breasts. Something hard pressed into me from behind and he began making slow grinding motions, back and forth, from side to side.
Do you remember our first time together? We were each still seeing other people then and we slipped away to meet at that expensive hotel in San Francisco. You thought it strange I would turn my back to you the first time and let you fuck me from behind. You wanted to look into my eyes. Mysterious, oriental eyes you called them. But I didn't want to look into yours. I didn't want to see your face, not then. I wanted to be that shy girl again, giving myself up to the unseen, the faceless. I wanted to hear you grunt, listen to the slap of your body against mine while holding my eyes tightly closed. We made love four times - three times that night and once more hastily in the morning - all in the same position. I remember you kissing the small of my back, calling me your little doggie. I didn't know what that meant until you explained it to me.
Yamada-san used to come over to our house and drink whiskey with my father while they listened to opera records on the hi-fi. My mother and I would serve them snacks and try to stay out of the way in the tiny apartment. I would spy on them through a crack in the kitchen door. I could never hate Mr Yamada for what he did or my father for being his friend. I think I felt sorry for them. I know it sounds strange, but that is how I felt when I looked at them through the tiny crack in the kitchen door.
The guy on the train was pressing against me more firmly now. No doubt that it was intentional. I leaned back into him so I could clearly feel the outline of his erection. I turned slightly to let the hard bump in his trousers nudge into the soft furrow of my ass.
I'm really making this guy's day, I thought. Please don't be angry with me for feeling that way. My daughter thinks I'm crazy, that I have I real problem with men. But then she objects to you too, so how right can she be? I know that I am a product of my past. But I'm a survivor of it. My life seemed destined to go one way until it quite unexpectedly went another. Leaving my father and the world of my childhood far behind across the Pacific was the first step, ending my marriage and the last ties to my old life the next. I have no regrets.
I know it is probably of little consolation, but on the train I was thinking of you too. Do you remember the time I flew down to Los Angeles so that we might have a few days together? You picked me up at the airport and took me straight to the party in the Hollywood hills. I wanted you so much, but we had to talk to all those boring, awful people! Finally, when you couldn't stand it anymore either you led me out onto the darkened terrace and pushed me against the railing. While I watched the lights of the city glitter below you reached beneath my skirt and tore away my panties with trembling fingers. Far away, I could see helicopters with searchlights stabbing down into the city. The deep thrumming of their rotors seemed to match the rhythm of your thrusts.
The man was stroking my hip with his free hand. I felt his fingers pause then trace along the elastic band of my panties through my skirt. We were doing a slow-motion dance, timed to the rocking of the train. I raised and lowered myself on my toes to slide my ass against his insistent probing erection while he gyrated his pelvis in complimentary rhythm.
I find it odd that even after knowing you for as long as I have, I can't guess what your reaction to this might be. Am I a fool to tell you? Perhaps you are furious. Reading this alone in your hotel room, you are cursing me. Maybe you are laughing. Or you find it titillating, a reason to come home early. Until now, you hadn't realized you missed me at all. But you are reading my letter with one hand, taking your cock out with the other; wishing the hand was mine; the soft ring of thumb and forefinger was my mouth wrapped around you; the fingers gently separating your balls, my tongue. You put the letter aside and begin stroking yourself in earnest, one hand grasping your thick cock, the other on your balls. I can almost taste it - the thick salty sperm heaved up onto your chest and belly.
The train left the downtown area and the crowd began thinning out. More people were getting off than getting on. Soon we would climb out of the tunnel to the elevated tracks. I could feel the man behind me pull back slightly. For a while people might assume we were husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, but then it would look odd, the two of us sandwiched together on an emptying train. I still had not turned to look at him, although I could have done so easily. I decided not to. If I never see his face I can always pretend that it was you, that somehow you managed to enter the body of a stranger so that we might be close again, even for a few moments.
If it really had been you I know what I would have done. I see myself leading you by the hand up the stairs to my apartment. Down on all fours, I want you to be rough with me. You told me once that you loved looking at my ass when we fucked. I want you to tell me that again now, to push my head down and drive your blunt cock into me. I beg you to pull out so that I might feel your come squirting against my tight opening. It tickles running onto the small of my back. When you have exhausted yourself, I let you collapse on top of me. Our heaving bodies are wet with salty sweat and sperm.
At the last underground station, the man pulled his body away from mine. He released the bar and let his hand trail slowly across my breasts, searching for my nipples but just missing them. The rush of air against my skin came as a shock. I realized how sweaty I had become where we were pressed together. I sensed him waiting for me to turn; he stood for a moment just over my shoulder. Fighting temptation, I continued to stare straight ahead as if nothing had happened. I thought I heard him leave the train, but I couldn't be sure. And then we were moving again. The train labored as it climbed out of the tunnel to the elevated tracks, emerging from deep shadow into light.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut.
Yoko.
Fin
Richard Rivers
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