The Girl I Couldn’t Get Over
By Ryuu Kawatani
‘You really care for the past, don’t you?’, Mie told me while we were sitting on the blue bench one night drinking beer and admiring Kobe Tower lit up like a giant piece of sculpted persimmon long after we had broken up.
Mie had an unnerving way of making questions that left me so stunned that I was without any idea of how to answer.
This was clearly an insult. Nobody likes to hear that they are stuck in the past.
Its accusatory nature took me completely off guard. I was so pleased to be reunited with her in my favorite spot in the world after so much effort to make it happen.
Several years earlier Mie and I had lived in a tent in the forest on Kobe’s famous Rokko mountain located directly behind the blue bench we were sitting on.
I sat silently suddenly very self-conscious of this obsession with the past I was unaware I had.
‘It’s not a bad thing’, Mie continued getting warmed up and becoming more confident and animated with every word that jumped from her lips.
‘In a way, it’s very touching the way you pay homage to the past wanting to get a taste of moments of time that become more perfect with each passing day’, Mie said nodding her head as she gave me an appraising look.
‘But I get the feeling though that it is holding you back, that you are simply retracing old ground over and over again’, Mie explained her voice taking on a distinctly charitable tone.
Feeling hurt and realizing that things looked not to be going my way I just sat there with a confused look on my face and said nothing.
‘You like this place and can’t get it out of your mind. I have forgotten the forest and feel nothing for it now. I have put it in a pretty little box and stored it away forever. I want to obliterate the person I was then. Yes, I have definitely graduated from here and I don’t want to return. This is the first time I have been here in ages. It’s not the same here anymore for me’, Mie told me definitively. ‘I’ve moved on’,
I wanted with all my heart to reach out and touch her. But I had started to shake and remained silent.
‘You’re not drinking your beer’, Mie told me taking a welcome break from her onslaught.
‘Aren’t you thirsty?’, Mie asked me looking at me with a frown.
I nodded my head and took a halfhearted sip from my tall can of Asahi Dry.
Mie opened another can of the same brand from the liquor store bag at her feet.
She pushed in the tab releasing the gas and put the silver can to her lips.
‘Ahhh!!! Spectacular!!!’, Mie shrieked as she relished the taste and the golden bubbles washing down her throat.
Huge disappointment cascaded over me as I watched her happy face and listened to her forceful words as they dissected me into pieces. There was a horrible feeling in my stomach like when you know you have done something terribly wrong but can’t quite say what.
What I had envisioned before the night took this awkward turn was taking Mie to the forest and putting my cock into her mouth. My mind had re-played the scenario over and over. Mie’s eyes lock onto mine as she slowly sucks the top of my cock before looking reverently at it while her lips slide down its base.
But it was clear that none of that would be happening. Mie was standoffish from the start and sat with a big gap between us and her limbs facing the opposite direction. And that was before she began offering observations regarding my character.
‘Oh no!!’, Mie shrieked.
‘I’ve got to get going or I am going to miss the last train’,
‘You can stay here. You like it, right?’, Mie said smiling warmly.
‘No. I will walk you down to the station’, I replied not wanting to be separated from her.
‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to…..’,
‘No, I am ready to go’, I lied.
I took her down to Sannomiya station, gave her a peck on the cheek and watched her disappear into the crowd.
It’s funny, even though I remember every detail of our conversation, I forget whether I was living in Japan or just visiting or even when the meeting took place.
But it is just as Mie said. I am stuck in the past. A past where she and I are blissfully happy living in a tent in the forest at the top Kobe, just above Kitano.
Every night we sit on the blue bench laughing and drinking Asahi Dry and Kirin Ichiban while I play guitar and Mie sings in her off key voice.
In the more than ten years since we have been apart there is rarely a day when I don’t think of her. Those eyes, clear and sharp as a reptile’s. Her shapely and inviting behind.
I’ve either been busy running away from her or running to her. Never with any success.
And yet still I cannot get over her. Even now.
My nights are often spent imagining her with me tangled up in ecstasy.
I can feel a close connection even though we are so far apart and rarely communicate.
One day out of the blue, I messaged her.
‘How are you getting along? Are you doing well?’, I asked.
‘Not at all. I’ve got a lot of problems’, Mie replied.
I don’t see this reply until the next day at which point there are two more.
‘Same as usual. No answer.’, Mie wrote angrily.
‘Don’t waste my time with mails just because you are bored’, Mie added.
‘Why don’t you come to Vancouver?’, I asked.
‘Sounds good. But it’s a question of time and money’, Mie responded much to my surprise.
I can tell that she is frustrated and needs some fun. Mie is fed up with the world and tired of being used and abused. Just like she was when we met at Ryan’s Bar in Kobe.
‘If you have the time, I have the money for an airplane ticket….’, I wrote.
‘Thank you Alpha’, came the reply. ‘But I can’t go right away even though I really want to. I will try to make some time next month at the end of June 20-26’, Mie explained.
‘That would be perfect’, I replied thinking of my own work schedule.
After a couple of days I get another message.
‘Are you living in a tent?’,
‘You know me. It is a great spot in the forest close to the University of British Columbia’, I wrote back thinking it would be the perfect place for Mie to re-charge.
No response.
The next evening I go over to my friend’s Max’s house for dinner. Max, a science teacher at an upscale Vancouver private school lives with his wife Yana and two teenage kids and usually tells it like it is.
‘I’m assuming she declined?’, Max asked after I tell him that I invited my ex-girlfriend to Vancouver and that she asked if I was living in a tent.
I just shrugged my shoulders.
When I told him that I had offered to pay for her plane ticket Max was aghast.
‘You know that is prostitution?’, Max asked unimpressed with my plan.
‘Yeah. I thought of that.’, I replied sheepishly.
Back in my tent that night I admitted to myself that welcoming Mie in my small tent was a less than attractive proposition. Where would she put her luggage? I pondered nervously.
‘If you don’t want to come to Vancouver, we could go somewhere else. Where do you want to go?’, I wrote.
‘Greece’, came her reply.
‘Sounds good!’, I wrote back.
‘Really!!??’, Mie asked surprised and happy.
‘Let me know how much your ticket is and I will send the money via Western Union in Osaka next Monday’, I wrote wanting to take care of the financial details properly since being one yen short or one hour late and all bets are off with Mie.
‘I wonder if I can accept it?’, Mie asked referring to the plane ticket offer.
‘I want you to accept it’, I wrote back awkwardly mortified she wouldn’t.
A day or two passed before I got a reply.
‘I’ll accept it as a token of friendship if you are okay with that’, Mie wrote to me.
Friendship? I think to myself. In no position to negotiate I realize that I must meet her regardless of what transpires between us.
‘Okay. I will go without any expectations’, I wrote back without delay.
I suggest starting our trip at the Acropolis in Athens but Mie says she wants to go straight to the Greek Islands.
‘Okay. What about Naxos?’, I suggested.
‘Looks good’, Mie replied.
Three weeks later I am standing on a dock nervously awaiting her arrival to Naxos Island on a huge Blue Star ferry.
‘Hello Mister’, I heard a voice say. I looked over and see a slim, nicely dressed Japanese woman. Mie’s hair is cut shorter than the last time I saw her and is in a bob.
Her face is different too. But there is no mistaking her.
‘You cut your hair?, I asked surveying her neat and shiny looking hair. When we first met it was long, wavy and dyed brown.
‘Yeah. I guess I did’, replied Mie casually with a nod of the head.
‘Tiring journey I bet’, referring to her flight from Osaka to Dubai complete with layover before switching planes to Athens.
I had arrived four days earlier and had spent the majority of time sleeping in the studio hotel I booked online from Canada. The pictures I saw looked great but my actual room was a major disappointment.
After managing to cancel the remaining five nights of my reservation I moved to the nicest hotel on the island and requested a room on the top floor of the three story hotel which had a stellar view of the old town and the harbor.
Mie’s ferry didn’t get to port until 9:30 at night and it was already dark by the time we arrived at the hotel’s entrance.
We took the ancient looking lift with manual opening door up to the third floor. Upon entering the room we were greeted with a magnificent night view on the balcony.
We both took a seat on the patio and surveyed the throngs of people on the paths below and the lights from the houses on the mountainside directly ahead of us. In the restaurant almost directly beneath us musicians played traditional Greek music.
‘It’s a nice view’, Mie said without adornment.
‘Do you want wine, beer or Citron?’, I asked showing her the long, slender bottle of Citron liquor made on Naxos Island and colored bright green.
‘Beer first’, Mie said seated on one of the patio chairs.
I went to the bar fridge and grabbed one of the 500ml chilled cans of Alpha beer.
There were two small beer glasses on the fridge which I took to the table before pouring the beer.
‘To Mie!! Thanks for coming!’, I toasted.
Mie nodded her head and clinked my glass.
‘To Naxos!!’, toasted Mie.
‘How was your flight?’, I asked feeling so relieved that she was finally with me.
As much as I wanted to meet her I was also absolutely horrified thinking about this moment. Was I even capable of making passable conversation?
‘We stopped in Dubai on the way to Athens. I don’t like that airport. Everyone is running around buying things. And the funny thing is they appear to enjoy buying expensive things. So you get all these cheap things painted gold and then sold at exorbitant prices’, Mie explained.
Mie drained her glass with impressive speed but I make sure to keep it full as I listened to her tell me about the intricacies of the design world in Osaka and the particular things one must do in Japan when it comes to business.
Mie’s talk was fast and fluid and got even more so after I opened a bottle of reasonably priced but very tasty Greek white wine.
We talked in Euros, in yen and in Canadian dollars while discussing our jobs, our cities and our travel.
Before we knew it the sun was coming up and we were exploring Naxos old and winding streets.
‘There’s a mysterious place ahead’, I explained when we came upon these old, colorful buildings I had found the day before which looked like they were part of some ancient theme park.
Beers in hand we were like two kids out on an adventure.
We had money in our pockets and that light feeling of having been set free from work schedules and daily chores.
‘Genuis!’, Mie exclaimed looking at some wrought iron window designs on one of the clusters of tourist studio hotels.
Mie noticed all the designs in everything we come upon whether it be a window, a cobblestone street, a piece of fabric or a piece of jewelry. She took pictures of everything with her iPad, her camera and her iPhone.
We realized that we were delirious from our walk, the beer and our lack of sleep.
‘We should get some shut eye’, Mie said.
I agreed and we made our way back to hotel to our bed.
‘What do you want from me?!’, Mie screamed at me suddenly as we lay next to each other in bed.
I am caught totally off guard. Absolutely nothing came to mind as I lay contentedly
in bed with the girl I had spent so long desiring and fantasizing about.
A dumb smile on my face is my only reaction.
‘I want to be with you. If only for even one night’, I answered not being able to think of a decent to reply.
It’s obviously the wrong answer. Mie turned away in disgust.
‘I don’t need a sex friend’, Mie said cuttingly.
‘Why do you think it didn’t go well between us?’, Mie asked becoming suddenly curious.
‘I wouldn’t let you be free. I wanted to possess you. I got jealous of other guys’, I told her feeling ashamed but unable to escape the true reasons why I couldn’t keep her last time.
‘It’s just going to happen over and over with you. Don’t you think so?’,
The question hurt. I had to admit it was a possibility.
‘Mie you are attractive. A lot of guys want you’, I told her.
She conceded my point while continuing her inquisition with more probing questions about work and marriage.
After exhausting her final questions Mie fell asleep on her twin bed while I laid silently on mine. There were only a couple of inches between us but she felt so very far away.
All I can do was think of touching her. Instead I decided to let her be. I went downstairs to see if the hotel’s complimentary breakfast had opened up.
‘Kalimera!’, I said good morning in Greek to the hostess.
‘Kalimera!’, the young hotel employee replied.
It’s the same girl who cleaned my room when I checked in the previous morning in anticipation of Mie’s arrival.
There was an impressive array of breakfast foods including Greek salad, Greek baked bread and cakes, fruits and coffees and teas.
I made a coffee for myself and one for Mie. When I brought it up to the room Mie was lying in bed.
‘Do you want a coffee?’, I asked imagining she probably needed one as badly as me.
‘Affirmative’, Mie said nodding her head.
She took a sip of the coffee I brought her before putting it down and getting dressed.
Her face was smooth and fresh looking in contrast to the puffy, blotchy appearance it had the previous night when she got off the ferry.
‘What’s breakfast look like?’, Mie asked of the buffet breakfast downstairs.
‘It’s great. They’ve got some of everything’, I answered.
We walked down the two flights of stairs to the hotel’s old style dining room.
A couple of elderly tourist couples sat around the tables eating and conversing.
Mie and I headed to the buffet table and started putting together our breakfast plates.
Mie’s was a piece of art by the time she arranged her cheese, cold cuts and bread and fruits into an exquisite design.
‘So what kind of work do you want to do? What are your dreams?’, Mie asked me.
Again with her questions.
‘Well, it’s not exactly a dream but I want to run my own company…fixing roofs’, I told her.
Mie nodded her head encouragingly.
‘But rather than being my ideal work it’s just a way to earn money’, I explained.
‘This isn’t very exciting but a person’s home is their biggest investment and yet very few people have any idea of the condition of their roof which if in poor condition is very vulnerable to water damage from gaps between joints in the metal flashing or other problem areas. I’d like to specialize in maintaining and fixing people’s roofs’, I said.
‘Since I don’t have to maintain the entire house but only the roof I will be able to cut down on my work and get paid well for a short period of time’, I theorized.
‘Wouldn’t doing bigger jobs be more profitable? You wouldn’t have to move around to different places all the time’, Mie interjected.
‘Yeah but I prefer that rather than being at the same job site for an extended period. It’s better to get in and out quick and get paid’, I argued.
‘But what I want to do this winter is to get my diving instructor’s license’, I told her.
‘I’m really curious about going to Raja Ampat in Indonesia which has the greatest concentration of marine life in the world’, I said.
Mie told me a story about a guy from England who she met in Bali who had spent years living in a tent on a shoestring budget teaching English to rich people.
‘He said he never wanted to go back to the UK. In fact, he couldn’t afford to but that he was happy being ‘free’. But that type of living doesn’t constitute ‘freedom’ to me. People just convince themselves that they are ‘free’. I bet you could live that way, couldn’t you?’, Mie asked me.
‘No, thank you!’, I replied without hesitation.
Mie then turned her talk to her own work: designing dresses, selling cameras at a big Japanese style electronics store and working in the summer at a family run hotel in Nagano.
Whenever she speaks of her own work it is always presented as airtight.
This is the first time I hear of her work selling cameras.
‘That’s how you knew so much about my camera!’, I said astonished.
Mie had shown me all the little features on my new Canon digital camera as she fiddled with this button and that knob. Just by touching it to her iPhone all my pictures were transported from my camera to her electronic device including the picture of the harbor I took which she called ‘the miraculous picture’. Tellingly, Mie didn’t transfer any pictures with me in them.
After finishing our breakfast we turned to some lighter conversation before we headed up to our room.
We both lie down on our separate twin beds and fall asleep. But since we only had the room until noon it was a short sleep.
When I awoke Mie was lying face down on her bed reading her Greece guide book. She was wearing a tight pair of shorts and a tank top. I sat myself gently on top of her bum and started massaging her neck and lower back. I put the palm of both of my hands on her lower back and pushed down with force. A groan emitted from her mouth. I followed the path of her spine up to her neck slowly and pushed my palms down on either side.
‘Harder!’, Mie commanded.
I did as instructed and heard a loud crack emit from below her shoulder blades and neck.
Mie let out a groan of satisfaction.
‘Thank you!’, Mie cried.
I continued my massage by using my fingertips on her buttocks. Her bum was soft but shapely, much more so than when we first met and it was indented. I took one cheek in each hand and squeezed.
Mie wasn’t wearing any panties and I pulled back the cloth of her cotton shorts and took a good look at her pussy. The dark, kinky pubic hairs reminded me that this was a genuine Japanese girl that I had with me.
I pulled up the shorts to reveal a perfectly bare anus with its beautifully designed pattern of crinkled spirals which went round and round until they ended in a tiny circle.
With some trepidation I bent down and inhaled her scent.
It was so sweet and incredibly arousing.
Gently, I stuck my tongue in this glorious zone.
Mie moaned softly as I licked her anus and pulled off her shorts.
I found the clasp of her bra and deftly undid it.
She was naked except for her tank top which I lifted up to expose her pert, glorious tits. I put my finger on her left nipple and played with it until it was hard.
My lips sucked on one nipple and then the other while I probed both with my tongue.
Between her legs were her perfectly trimmed pussy hairs shaped in a triangle. With my right hand I pulled up her pussy lips and exposed her clitoris.
Slowly I kissed my way down her body and stopped at her belly button and the sides of her flat stomach.
I put my face into her vagina and savored the scent. Gently I licked around Mie’s clitoris while I played with it using my finger.
Mie’s hand gripped the edges of the bed and her legs outstretched and stiffened.
‘It’s good’, I heard Mie say in a barely audible voice when I touched the right place.
Wanting to bring her to climax I kept sucking her pussy as I inserted one and then two fingers into her anus.
Mie let out a primal moan that was irresistible to my ears. I pushed in and pulled out my fingers with more speed and strength.
When Mie started to come intensely I wanted to come with her. I took my cock in my hand and inserted it reverently in Mie’s wet pussy.
Mie moaned loudly as my shaft entered her. This was absolute ecstasy for me. With each thrust of my cock Mie let out of whimper of pleasure.
The sound of her voice and the sultry look on her face were too much for me but I didn’t want to come.
Momentarily, I withdrew my cock to prevent myself from coming but it was too late.
Holding my cock in my hand, I aimed it at Mie’s face before coming in a thunderous explosion. My load landed on Mie’s cheek and behind her on the headboard of the bed.
It was an amazing amount of cum that had been building up in the week of solid work I had before flying to Athens and then the five days I waited in Naxos for Mie.
There’s also cum all over Mie’s stylish tank top.
I was torn between wanting to savor the cum on Mie’s face or wiping it off for her.
Ruefully, I took a towel and wiped the cum from Mie’s face and the headboard.
We both lay on the bed for a few moments without speaking.
I was smiling and so happy I could have died. How long had I waited?
Satisfaction ran through my very being.
Mie’s expression, however, was serious and annoyed looking.
‘You got it on my top! You better wash it!’, Mie admonished me but took the tank top to the bathroom herself.
A while later she emerged with a frown, top in hand.
‘It doesn’t come out. What is it?!!!’, Mie asked me showing me some small stains that were indeed obvious to the eye.
Embarrassed I took the tank top to the bathroom. Very carefully I put soap on the stains and gently rubbed them back and forth.
Sure enough after rinsing the soap away the small white marks were still there like some kind of glue.
Over and over I repeated applying soap, water and rubbing.
Finally, the spots became so small as not to be noticeable.
Mie peaked her head into the washroom to observe my work’s progress.
‘It’s a tough one. You don’t want to wash it so much as to make a hole’, Mie cautioned.
‘I don’t think they are obvious now’, I said showing Mie the result of my labor.
‘No they are not obvious now. You are good’, Mie said praising my technique.
Later as we are getting ready in the room to go out and explore the old city Mie let me know she wasn’t pleased.
‘I let my guard down’, Mie said almost to herself referring to our massage session.
‘I’ll end up hating you’, Mie told me flatly.
But the time we spend together on Naxos turned out to be blissful.
In fact, both Mie and I fell in love with the island. We talked about renting an old apartment in town and fixing it up with Mie saying she could easily live there for 6 months a year working on her designs.
When we were out exploring the town and taking pictures of its incredibly friendly cats a middle aged European woman came out of one of these old apartments.
‘We are thinking of renting an old apartment for six months or a year, do you know if that is possible?’, I asked.
‘It’s definitely possible and you could rent it for 200 or 230 Euro. But not during high season. Come back and talk to me in two or three months in September’, the woman told us after saying her name is Hannah.
The next day we rent a car and drive it from one end of the island to the other.
It’s a stick shift Chevy compact car. The Greek owner of the rental shop is extremely friendly and gives it to us for an outrageously reasonable rate.
‘Let’s just do a quick walk around. There are a couple small scrapes. Here. And here. And here.’, the middle aged man told us in his Australian accented English.
‘You can make a dent or two as long as they are not too big’, the man told us with a laugh.
And off we go. It was over a decade and a half since I last drive a stick shift car and it showed.
The road was pretty complicated with spotty signage and we soon find ourselves at the coast only it’s the wrong one. I had veered off course and missed the road that traverses the mountain range in the middle of the island.
‘Since we are at the ocean why don’t we go for a snorkel before we get back on the road?’, I suggested.
‘Okay’, Mie answered with a nod of the head.
I grabbed my snorkel and mask, did up the car window on my side and exited the vehicle.
‘The window’s still open’, the still seated Mie said looking at her window which was still open at the top by a few inches.
From outside the car I handed her the keys so she could put them in the ignition and turn them just enough to put up the power windows.
Mie looked at the keys like they were some kind of strange, ancient artifact. Not having her license, Mie mistakenly turned the keys a full rotation.
To my horror, the engine engaged and the car lurched forward smashing into a stone wall 5 or 6 feet ahead.
Mie’s expression turned to one of fright as I vainly grabbed the car door in an attempt to bring it to a halt before it came to a standstill at the wall.
The other side of the wall was a small valley so if the car didn’t stop it would have been a bad accident indeed.
Mie said nothing and exiting the vehicle to survey the front bumper. It was one of those slick ones without any metal bar. At first we were both relieved since we didn’t spot any damage.
But then Mie spotted a big tear. The red paint was scratched and the outer shell was ripped.
‘This is going to cost a lot of money’, Mie said simply.
‘Let’s think about it later’, I told her not wanting to ruin our excursion.
We made our way down a long path to the beach. There wasn’t a soul in sight and it was a little lonely looking with craggy bushes being the only vegetation.
I was still in shock from the image of Mie jettisoning forward in a runaway car. My feeling was off.
Down on the beach the wind was blowing hard and the waves were rough.
‘It’s choppy’, Mie exclaimed.
We turned around and went straight back to the car.
Nervously, I turned the ignition and pulled the car back onto the road.
Mie had lost all confidence in both my driving and navigation abilities.
She barked ‘left’, ‘right’ or ‘straight’ with unwavering confidence.
It was a tough go finding the mountain pass but eventually we made it and enjoy the spectacular scenery including a fabulous view of Mt. Zeus.
For lunch we stopped in a famous, old village and chose a table on the patio of a Greek tavern.
The service was ridiculously slow and we waited for more than twenty minutes for our beer before Mie lost her patience and went to find the waiter.
We ordered grilled chicken and Greek salad and talked about Mie’s work and family while waiting for the errant food to arrive.
‘I usually spend 2 or 3 nights working straight at my studio and then go home to my parents’ house for another few days’, Mie told me.
‘Do you talk to your Mom and Dad a lot?’, I asked Mie curious to know.
‘Not at all’, Mie said shaking her head as if I had said something unspeakable.
Mie told me how her Dad beat her regularly until she was a teenager.
‘That’s horrible!’, I said shocked.
‘It’s regular’, Mie replied as if it was no big deal.
‘For that generation it is what people did’, Mie explained.
I relate a story about my first Japanese girlfriend in Kyushu whose father used to beat her mother until one day she stepped in the middle and told him never to lay a hand on her again.
Mie only nodded dismissively.
‘When I became old enough to protect myself I hid a pen knife at my side and when my Dad came to hit me I stabbed him in the leg’, Mie said nonchalantly.
‘Since I was the first of three girls my Dad really loves me and recently my Mom has become jealous’, Mie told me.
I was not sure what to say.
‘Even though he loves you so much he beat you?’, I asked confused.
‘That has nothing to do with it. When he loses it he doesn’t know what he is doing’, Mie said.
I nod my head understanding what it is like to lose control when you get angry.
Finally, Mie totally lost her cool.
‘Where’s this chicken?! We can’t wait like this’, Mie declared and suggested we should leave.
Just then our chicken arrived. We were both overjoyed because we were starved and at the ends of our temper.
I took a bite and was instantly underwhelmed by the dry and under seasoned chicken. But I didn’t say anything. Come to think of it I was on my best behavior all vacation. I was just happy to be with Mie who I have yearned to be with for so long.
It was plain to see that it was a one-way love affair. Mie didn’t say a kind word to me since arriving.
We finished our lunch and our talk about Mie’s family and hit the road again.
It was a truly amazing mountain pass with so many narrow turns looking over jaw dropping cliffs which fell hundreds of meters into a valley abyss far, far below.
We stopped at an old church made of cobblestone at the top of Mt. Zeus. Mie took my picture while I pose shirtless at the mountain’s craggy apex.
‘You look like a Spartan warrior’, Mie said impressed when we look at the photos.
After what seems like a very long time we make it to the beach we planned to visit at the opposite end of the island. There were a couple of cafes and families with small children in bathing suits.
Mie and I headed directly for the beach and took off our clothes. Mie had her bikini on underneath and I admired its design against her slim body.
We put on our snorkels and masks and went in the water. It was cold and there were no fish or coral to speak of but we had a good swim nonetheless.
How many years had it been since I last snorkeled? I wondered.
After 20 minutes we started to swim back the shore.
On the shore we start collecting little rocks.
‘Look at this one!!’, Mie said showing me a clear pebble.
‘Don’t be jealous!!’, she teased me just as if we were a couple of kids.
I savored the moment and how we were almost like boyfriend and girlfriend again.
After collecting three or four gems each we go back to the car and start to drive further down the road.
‘It’s like another planet here!!’, exclaimed Mie as we surveyed the barren landscape dotted with pygmy like trees and shrubs.
‘Bonsai!’, Mie said of the dwarf like trees.
I was having trouble shifting gears and at one point the car stalled in the middle of nowhere.
‘What’s wrong?’, Mie asked with disappointment in her voice.
‘Is it broken?’, she added skeptically.
Just then a Greek couple pulled over and the man offered to help.
He put the car in neutral and rolled it down the hill.
Like magic the car suddenly started and the man pulled it over and put it in neutral with the hand brake on.
We thanked the couple profusely and all had a good laugh before we got back in the vehicle and started our journey back to town.
Mie laughed at my lack of expertise. I nervously drove back to rental shop being careful not to shift into 3rd gear too much because it was starting to go. I definitely did not want to stall again.
When we got back to the rental shop the man who rented us the vehicle came out with a big smile.
‘How was your trip?’, he asked.
‘Great! Thank you!’, I replied feeling bad about the car’s damaged front end. I had managed to lessen its effect by pushing out the shell but it was still slightly noticeable.
‘We had a small accident’, I added hastily.
The man’s expression changed as he went to the front of the car and examined the damage that I had attempted to minimize.
He touched the spot with his finger and there was a long pause as our fate was being decided.
‘Don’t worry about it!’, he said with a shrug.
‘Really?!! Thank you!!’, I said.
As soon as we got out of sight Mie and I started jumping up and down at our good fortune.
‘His face color changed when he saw the damage! But he didn’t want to tarnish his perfect professional demeanor!’, Mie told me.
We were in high spirits and decided to rent a new room before dinner.
It’s right by the water and the owner is an elderly gentleman who showed us the room and gave us the key with no questions asked.
I handed him the money and he showed us the balcony and the kitchen.
‘You make breakfast for him tomorrow, okay?’, the man teased to Mie.
‘Okay’, Mie said smiling and nodding her head.
I laughed thinking that in the two years Mie and I were together she only ever made me one meal. It was after we had moved out of our tent and into a nice little house just down the hill. In our little kitchen one morning she made me fried rice for breakfast. In shock I ate it thinking it was the tastiest thing I had ever eaten.
For dinner that night, Mie wore the blue throw I had spotted the day before in one of the clothing shops in the old city.
‘This is not a color that anyone wears in Japan’, Mie told me with raised eyebrows.
‘It suits you perfectly’, I told her.
Mie disappeared in to the shop to try it on and after discussing it with the shop girl she bought it.
With Mie looking spectacular wearing her new garment we went off for dinner.
I tried to take Mie’s picture to capture her beauty but she got cross and told me to stop. Reluctantly I gave up taking Mie’s picture as we walked along the ocean path that led to the taverns in the heart of Naxos city.
After some debate we chose a seafood restaurant with some whole octopuses hanging out front their purple legs dangling from the rafters.
The owner of the restaurant, a stocky gentleman with silver hair and the air of a maitre d’ came out and took our order.
‘Could we get Greek spinach salad, grilled octopus and a carafe of ouzo please?’, I asked ordering for the two of us.
The maitre d’ nodded approvingly and disappeared.
When the octopus arrived, Mie took some shots with her camera. Ostensibly I did the same. But it was Mie’s face not the food that I was concentrating on.
‘Do you know how beautiful you are when you are angry?’, I asked.
‘Are you trying to make me angry?’, Mie asked me with just the angry expression that I so like.
I put away my camera and focused on the food. It was the best meal we had in Naxos and we had many.
Mie took a look at the pictures of the meal I had taken on my camera and smirked.
‘Would you be satisfied with this shot if you were the owner of this restaurant who had hired you to do a magazine layout?!’, Mie asked me rhetorically.
‘It’s no good?’, I asked confused.
‘Take a look at this. Voila!’, Mie said with a cool look on her face.
It was a perfectly balanced shot of the octopus and spinach dishes with the glasses of ouzo and the bottle captured up front. It absolutely looked ready for publishing in a food magazine.
‘Ahhh! That’s how it’s done! Very educational’, I said truly impressed.
We finished our splendid dinner and took a walk through the maze of winding streets of the old town.
Mie stopped and commented on every little bit of sculpted wrought iron or cobblestone.
‘Look at this!’, Mie said examining the patterned rocks on the foot path.
‘The Greeks don’t overlook anything. They are just like Japanese’, Mie gushed.
Mie stopped to look at the window front of a jewelry store. A bright red pair of earrings caught her eye and we make plans to come back tomorrow to take another look.
Back in our room we get ready for bed after taking pictures of a gorgeous full moon from the hallway window.
In bed I reached over and tried to hold Mie but when she stiffened her shoulders I decided I had better stay on my side of the bed and then fell asleep.
The next morning I awoke and lifted the covers to expose Mie’s panties on her nicely shaped behind.
I gingerly touched her afraid that she would stop me from proceeding. She turned her back to me but it seemed like an invitation for me to push my throbbing cock into her ass.
I pushed my cock against her and Mie pushed back. I worshiped her body starting with putting my tongue in her anus and pussy. Before I knew what was happening we were having sex and kissing passionately and deeply. I came with a thunderous explosion. Again I came on her tank top despite my best intentions.
I got up and went out to get some pastries and coffee while Mie went back to bed.
Afterwards we stopped by the jewelry store and Mie ended up buying the beautiful red coral earrings we glimpsed the previous evening.
Later that afternoon we departed for Athens to spend a couple of days before Mie’s flight back to Japan.
In Athens we first went to go see the Acropolis on a scorching hot morning well over 40 degrees Celsius.
‘I regretted this as soon as we entered’, Mie told me as we walked the ancient footpaths.
Mie put a scarf on her head to cut down on the sun and looked like a Muslim.
At the top of the footpath by the Parthenon Mie found a bathroom and came out with a wet towel that she put on my head.
Instantly I felt about 5 degrees Celsius cooler. I was so grateful for this kind gesture of hers.
It’s funny. This was the place I most looked forward to seeing before I came to Greece but when I was actually there it seemed disappointing.
But looking at Mie’s beautiful face put me back in a good mood.
The trip on the whole exceeded my wildest expectations. We spent six idyllic days together eating, traveling, drinking, and most importantly of all, having sex.
In Athens we stayed in a hostel with a view of the Acropolis. Our first night as we lay in bed Mie let me have her from behind.
‘Suck his big black cock you bitch!’, I said suddenly as I was pounding Mie’s exquisite ass.
Mie looked around startled with a ‘Where did that come from?!’ look on her face.
But she didn’t stop me.
I then put my cock in Mie’s mouth and received my first blow job of the vacation.
At first she hesitated but she soon started to suck in earnest if with a little too much teeth.
It didn’t take long for me to come in her mouth. She took it all but didn’t swallow despite my urging.
Instead she went to the bathroom, closed the door and ran the tap.
Despite the many passionate sex sessions we had during our vacation I couldn’t help feeling that Mie held it against me.
Several times Mie rolled over when I made my advances and she kept getting angry when I tried to take her picture.
There was an element of resignation that stemmed from my buying her ticket. Probably Mie felt somewhat obligated to have sex with me since I had paid for her plane ticket.
But it wasn’t as if I was some strange man she had just met but a longtime ex-boyfriend whom she loved very deeply at some point.
All these feelings must have been confusing for Mie.
On her final night before flying back to Japan it all boiled over.
We decided to go back to this tasty chicken restaurant where we had dined a couple days prior.
We had trouble finding it and our tempers became short as our hunger increased.
‘I remember it had a fancy sign’, I told Mie as we attempted to re-trace our steps to the shop and its unforgettable chicken.
‘Really?’, Mie asked unconvinced with a sullen look on her face.
‘Here it is’, we both said in unison with smiles coming to our weary faces.
The staff remembered us from our first visit and smiled as we took a small table at the back of the restaurant in front of the TV.
It was broadcasting the results of the British referendum on whether or not to leave the European Union.
Several old men stood around yelling at the TV as the results were coming in.
‘We’ll have a half roasted chicken and a Greek salad’, I said repeating our order from last time exactly.
On this visit, however, Mie suggested we order two huge glasses of Alpha beer instead of the regular sized ones we had on our previous visit.
The food arrived and we started to devour it almost immediately.
As I was truly enjoying the succulent chicken, the crunchy salad and the cold beer Mie innocently asked me a question:
‘Have you ever run into trouble?’,
‘Yes, I have’, I replied.
‘When?’, Mie asked becoming very interested.
‘Last year’, I replied not wanting to discuss it.
‘What happened?’, Mie asked her face clouding over.
‘I don’t really want to say’, I answered coldly.
‘You should’, Mie retorted clearly not willing to give up.
‘I got into trouble of the Bullet Train’, I answered reluctantly.
‘What kind of trouble?’, Mie asked sternly.
‘A fight’, I said.
‘With who?’, Mie pried.
‘The conductor. I kicked him’, I answered.
‘So you were arrested?’, Mie asked me becoming visibly angry.
‘Yeah’, I replied.
‘How long for?’, Mie asked her cross examination becoming increasingly intense.
‘Three and a half months’, I replied quietly.
I tried to explain that I had left Tokyo for a break in Vancouver that turned very bad. Three months later I found myself riding a Bullet Train from Kobe to Tokyo to see my daughters with zero yen in my pocket after not having eaten for three days.
‘So you caused trouble for people who trusted you?!!!’, Mie asked rhetorically referring to the owner of the English school in Ginza who had sponsored my visa and my apartment.
‘You just make excuses for yourself while doing this to others?!! Way too many excuses! You know what? You should stop pretending to be a good person. You should admit you are a bad person and stop tricking people into believing you are good. They will believe you and be disappointed. It’s not fair. You can be quite cruel. I know how your wife feels because I have been there too. You are a fraud!!’, Mie screamed.
‘Hey, listen. This is your last night. Let’s take a break from this. I appreciate your saying this. I do. Very much. I need time to digest it all though’, I said trying to placate Mie somehow.
‘Digest?!!! Digest what?!!Do you need time to digest something this basic??’, Mie asked unconvinced.
My appetite was gone but Mie was still eating and was on her sixth or seventh large Alpha draft beer.
‘You better be picking up the tab!’, Mie said draining her glass.
‘I hope this little talk was worth the plane ticket you sent’, Mie said still fuming.
Somehow Mie stopped her tirade for a moment and I asked the staff for a picture.
Before I know what was happening Mie was behind the counter with a pair of tongs and a staff hat one of the guys had put on her.
She was hamming it up pretending to be an employee.
I took four classic shots of this skit before paying our rather hefty bill and exiting onto the street having been firmly put into my place by Mie.
Mie surveyed the photos on my camera.
‘You can’t even see that I’m an employee!!’, Mie complained saying that I didn’t focus on the condiments on the table.
I saw what she meant. As usual I was only interested in catching her face.
‘At least you can see the tongs!’, I said in my defense.
The tongs and that inimitable face of hers which to me is the most attractive of any woman in the world.