As Norma and I tramped up Avenue A, I commented how the alphabetized streets always struck me as temporary titles, as though some city planner had run out of names of statesmen and admirals.
“I once figured that they were named that way so that turn-of-the-century immigrants could learn the alphabet.” The genesis of such things was a mystery: we just accepted what was there and worked with it.
By the time I got home, I was starving. It was ten-fifteen, and I remembered that Zoë and her trapezoidal boyfriend were dining down the block. With them was that Psycho guy, who had a mysterious crush on me. Even though I still had to write the Kinko’s story, I decided to go—a free dinner was waiting, if nothing else. I brushed the city out of my hair, washed it off my face, pulled on some clothes that exuded happiness, and headed out.
The three of them were flickering under a candle, ensconced at a corner table. Jeff was yakking away as usual when I approached. Zoë was listening with an adoring smile, and this cute little Japanese man sat there making an attempt at not appearing bored, a detail that immediately charmed me.
“Sako, this is Mary. Mary, this is Sako,” said Zoë, all of her real spirit flattened in girlfriendly servitude. I shook his hand, and as if I had pulled a chain, his entire face lit up. He looked adorable, so small and controlled, but I couldn’t imagine ever sleeping with him.
“She thought your name was Psycho,” Jeff teased.
“Like the Hitchcock movie,” Sako said, and laughed.
“Sako is an interesting name,” I stated, trying to white out Jeff’s existence.
“It means William,” Sako said calmly.
“William?” I repeated, unable to figure how he could extract a Western name from an Eastern one. He nodded.
When the large Egyptian waiter finally brought me a menu, everyone had already decided exactly what they wanted. As they listed their drinks and entrées, skipping appetizers, my eyes juggled through different dishes and finally dropped down on the eggplant parmesan, which I requested without cheese or oil. I didn’t even want the eggplant, but I wasn’t in the mood for meat.
“You know, just below this place is a gay porn theater,” Jeff divulged. I had little doubt that he had frequented it in his spare time.
“Sako is getting his master’s in film,” Zoë volunteered, trying to normalize the conversation.
“At NYU?” I asked, smiling at him.
“Yes,” he smiled back. “Actually, I just decided on a thesis.”
“What’s it on?”
“Teenage American films of the 1980s.”
“Like John Hughes?” I sneered unintentionally.
“You know the works of Mr. Hughes?” He seemed genuinely astounded by my erudition. I smiled noncommittally.
“You should do a documentary on taking out the garbage,” Jeff kidded shrilly, reminding me of the way dolphins balance briefly on their tail before flopping back into water.
“So do you like the program?” I asked, trying not to sound fatuous.
“You know another film you could do?” Jeff said to his own unclear amusement. “Do one on feet.”
“Jeff dear,” Zoë demurred with a tactful smile, instead of, Shut the fuck up!
Soon after everyone had drunk down the first carafe of wine and the second carafe was ordered, the bread basket arrived; slightly reheated day-old buns and a small dipping saucer filled with medium-grade motor oil. Sako didn’t touch it, going right for the wine. I nibbled slightly at the edge of one roll like a mouse. Zoë and Jeff gobbled down the rest. As the dinner unfolded, the conversation was a ridiculous montage of Jeff making grand declarations, which were usually obnoxious, Zoë politely trying to silence him, and Sako and I trying our best at navigating around both of them.
With every new word he said, with every understated gesture and demure facial expression, I liked Sako more and more. He was a proud little man, and that contrast turned me on. Yet despite his ingratiating mannerisms, his love of Americana made me wonder where things could really go. After we passed on the overpriced dessert tray, Sako asked, “So you’re a writer of fiction?” reminding me that I was quite late for my rendezvous with my word processor.
“Actually, she’s an employee at Kinko’s, but who’s counting?” Jeff joked.
“Go fuck yourself,” I rejoined. It was time to write, and this was a superb opportunity to act insulted. I shoved my chair back so ferociously it fell dramatically to the floor, then stormed out. I had dashed across Second Avenue when I heard the faint mewings of someone behind me, “Mary! Mary!”
I turned to see Sako catching up to me.
“I am sorry, he is such an idiot,” he struggled to say, referring to Jeff.
“I should just get used to it,” I said. We walked in the street around a half-completed construction site.
“What are they building here?” He looked up at the still unfinished building on the south side of Fourth between First and Second avenues.
“These are the new efficiency apartments that’ll turn this neighborhood into another one,” I replied and decided to impart some trivia that Primo had once told me. “This used to be the Andersen Theater. It was one of the old Yiddish theaters that lined Second Avenue back around the turn of the century. During the sixites it became a rock-and-roll palace.”
“Rock and roll?” That caught his interest.
“Yeah, this was where Janis Joplin first played in New York.”
“This, here!” he said in amazement.
“Yes.”
He paused a moment in reverence. Then we resumed walking, and as we passed by the Sushi Garage, he asked, “Would you like to go for saki?”
“I can’t stand saki,” I said, still associating the place with Alphonso.
“Me neither,” he agreed with a smirk.
“You know, I really don’t have time to hang out tonight. I have to submit a collection of stories by tomorrow.”
“Can’t we spend a small portion of time together?” His eyes squinted ferociously at me, as though he were looking at the glinting snows of Mount Fuji.
“Well, maybe just a small portion of time then.” I was about to suggest that we could sit on the dark benches of the housing project across the street from my house when he looked up and said, “We can go up to your roof, no?”
That was really a location for a second or even a third date, but the red wine from the restaurant had gotten to my head, and we had to go somewhere: “Let’s go.”
“How about we get a beer first?” He was a sly one.
“I can’t drink any more tonight.” I needed to think clearly for the writing.
“No, no.” He pretended to misunderstand. “My treat.”
“Okay, just one can of beer.” I knew I could handle that much.
He dashed into the Arab deli on the southwest corner, raced to the reach-in fridges that lined the right side of the place, and returned to the counter where I was waiting. There I discovered that he had pulled another slick move, selecting two of those oil drums of Fosters Lager.
We headed toward my house. Halfway across the street, though, just as the light was changing, he unexpectedly shouted, “Excuse!”
Turning around, he dashed back into the deli. I tried to join him, but the ongoing traffic divided us. In another minute he was outside, smiling, jaywalking his way back to me.
“What was that about?” I asked.
He shook a box of bright red TicTacs. Slick Willy was planning on swapping spit. Well, just maybe we would. Once at my apartment, we climbed up the stairs until we reached the roof door. We opened up the rusty bolt and stepped onto the tarblackness. Carefully we steered around skylights, rusty pipes, and filthy brick chimneys. Sako grabbed my hand and took the liberty of climbing onto an adjacent rooftop, where we took a seat on a low brick wall and stared at the distant mountain peaks of skyscrapers and nearby valleys of tenement rooftops.
He opened both our beers and handed me one. I only took a sip and instantly felt woozy. Although the conversation was a bit halting, we drank our beer and contemplated the gorgeous lightscape of the city’s skyline. Sako’s slippery hands quickly got twined into my hair like bats. Before I knew it, Sako was massaging my arms and neck. I was bigger and stronger than Sako and didn’t feel threatened by him as I did with Alphonso. He also seemed sane, so I let him get away with a lot more. When I leaned against a chimney stack, he chivalrously placed his jacket around my shoulders so I wouldn’t get all cinder-filthy.
I didn’t know if it was one of the secrets of the Orient, but the guy really got into the Zen of massage. I felt like a small car being tuned up, getting my oil replaced and my wheels rebalanced. His magical hands reached into the muscles along my ribs and upper chest, where he seemed to clean the bones and put them back. When he rubbed my breasts, it was so casual and nonerogenous that I wasn’t even aware he stole second base.
Primo gave a fair rubdown, but he didn’t come close to this dear little man. And just when I thought he was done, Sako unlaced my kickers and went to work on my feet. This turned out to be the most electric and exultant part of the workout.
I think he actually had a secret form of communication with each part of my foot: the sole, the instep, the heel, the arch, and each toe. Every member of the foot family wanted a different sensation, and only he knew that feeling—he became one with it. The mounting ecstasy compelled a minor out-of-foot experience. Finally, urgently, I reached over with both hands and grabbed his tight little buns, pulling him up against me. Soon, when his lips clipped over mine, his TicTac-tasty tongue tingled in my palate. I found myself kissing him without effort. I don’t know quite how it happened, but at some point we floated down the airshaft and into my apartment. Only Numb broke the spell by leaping up on Sako with his body outstretched. The dog was almost as tall as him. I pulled the pooch off and stuck him in the bathroom. Unlike Alphonso, he didn’t even have to ask. If Caroline was in her room, I didn’t hear her.
We slipped into the bedroom and resumed our lip wrestle. Sako wasn’t a great kisser, but what he lacked in tongue-flickability, he made up for in sheer tongue-mopping. The man outlicked Numb. His pointy red swab voyaged its way down the cresting waves of my neck, navigating through the straits of my breasts, whirlpooling forever along the flat of my stomach. His hands pulled down my pants, attempting to explore my Cape of Good Hope, but it wasn’t that easy, I held on to my panty elastic like a life preserver. I could feel his open mouth exhale over the sheer fabric of my panties, into my parted crotch. Finally he bypassed my bastion of neglect, sliding his lips down my legs, pausing on his real port of entry. His catlike tongue swam along the twists of my right ankle and lashed out and down my Achilles’ heel. There he stopped for a moment, breathing heavily. With a jolt, I bolted up. He was sucking my toes. I never imagined they were so sensitive.
Over the next few minutes, his tongue pumiced the callous of my heels, pedicured my hoof-like nails, and cleaned the jam between my toes. Then, his sweet mouth opened and he deep-jawed me. Looking down, I felt as though I were being swallowed by a python: he had about half of my size-eight foot down his expanding throat. I could also see he was rubbing himself over his pants.
He truly brought some exotic dishes to the erotic table. His mouth worked its way up; this time he tore my panties off like they were fastened by Velcro strips. But I didn’t mind. His carnal credentials were in order. His tenacious little tongue went right to work, starting on the bristled periphery before going in for the kill. When his pants and boxers dropped off, and I could see his ruddy thing throbbing out like a large baby’s pacifier, I called foul.
“What’s the matter, Mary?” he asked innocently.
“Protection.”
Out came a pack of condoms—Rough Riders—and I realized that that was what this Far Eastern Lothario had hastily purchased along with the TicTacs. He slipped a glove on, and then I did what I always swore I’d never do (but occasionally did)—had sex on the first goddamned date.
Unfortunately, that’s when things started quickly becoming undone. He kamikazed almost as soon as he entered, screaming like Godzilla as he did so. Next he bounced up and down on the bed like some pint-size Tarzan. Spotting the half-finished bottle of Jack Daniels sticking out of one of Primo’s banana boxes, he snatched it, unscrewed the top, and took a monster gulp. Then naked, as though doing some victory dance, he threw on the radio, and started bobbing and drinking to the music, his rhubarb flipping up and down under its spiky tuft of pubic hair. A few moments later, he was tuckered out.
“May I see your shoes?” he asked after a brief rest.
I pointed to my closet, and wondered how I was going to get rid of him and back to my writing. I watched him squatting over my dozen or so shoes, looking deeply into them, touching the leather uppers, sniffing the Vibram lowers, checking out the manufacturer labels like a boy fussing over baseball cards. Finally, he sighed over my two pairs of campy high heels.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but—” I said, wanting him the hell out.
He didn’t even notice me as I started panicking about his intrusion in my closet space. When I opened the bathroom door, Numb darted out and into the bedlam of the bedroom. I had gargled and showered as I wondered how I was going to flush this man, when to my surprise, I heard him scream, “Help me, Mary!”
I raced in to see him standing on the bed, terrified, holding one of my pumps in one hand and the bottle of Jack in the other. Numb, who had sniffed him, was now upon him, licking his sushi roll.
“Oh my!” He folded down from his freshly opened umbrella of drunkenness. I grabbed Numb by the collar and held him.
“Bad dog,” I said to the both of them. “You can take the bottle, but I have to write.”
“Yes, yes.” He rose and started pulling on his pants and shirt. I waited patiently with the dog by the front door.
“I hope this was not too sudden,” he said, probably quoting a line from the script of Pretty in Pink.
“Not at all, you were great.” Which must have been a line from Some Kind of Wonderful.
“Thank you, thank you,” he said, pulling on his shoes. I opened the front door. Before he could tie them, he staggered out, still holding my old pump and bottle. I grabbed the shoe and gave him his jacket as he passed into the unpainted, unswept hallway.