I suppose it’s only natural that you would start thinking about Akané, again. After all, your Chinese “friend” wouldn’t let you crack open her fortune cookie, so to speak, and the girls at the Happy Cock weren’t interested in your . . . ahem, and Nahoko had the good sense to run as far away from you as possible . . .
Hey!
So, two weeks before your wife is scheduled to return, you start asking around about Akané.
It wasn’t like that at all.
How was it then, Peadar?
I went to a bar . . .
Happy Cock, again?
No.
The Crazy Cock?[1]
No!
The Monstrously Huge Cock?
Oh, for the love of God!
I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.
I went to Off Broadway.
Another gaijin bar.
Yes, another gaijin bar. A friend of mine named Stanley worked the kitchen there.
As I’m sitting at the counter eating a burger, Stanley emerges from the kitchen, wiping his meaty hands on his apron, and says, “Hey, Peadar, how’s it going?”
“Meh . . .”
“Your girlfriend was in here the other day.”
“My girlfriend?” I’m not sure who Stanley is talking about.
“Akané.”
“Oh, right. That girlfriend,” I say, a wistful smile on my face. “She come here often?”
“Off and on.”
And though I would rather not know, I can’t keep myself from asking: “Alone?”
“Akané Alone? Hah! That girl may arrive alone, but she never leaves this joint that way.”
And the wistful smile drops from my face . . .
Stanley continues: “Akané was in here a few weeks ago. Sitting exactly where you are now, Peadar. And this big black guy—must have been twice her height and five times her weight—he had his hands down the front of her shirt, pawing the girl like he was shopping for avocadoes, and Akané was laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. They left together and a few nights later she came back and she said, ‘His chimpoko[2]was this big!’ Well, I don’t know how the guy could have ever got a cock that big inside her, she’s so tiny.”
. . . and is replaced by chagrin.
“Get this,” Stanley says with a playful grin. “I asked Akané why she keeps sleeping with all these black guys, and you know what she tells me? She whines, ‘How else will I ever forget Peadar?’”
And that, Peadar, was the end of your long-anticipated Summer of Love.
Yeah . . . A week later Haruka returned.
[1]The Crazy Cockwas one of three popular clubs run by an English expat in the late 90s and early “Naughties”. The businesses were eventually sold to others, and while The Happy Cock retained its name for a while, The Crazy Cock located on Oyafukō-dōriis now called Fubar.
[2]Older Japanese slang for “cock”.
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.