In the hotel room under the lavender-tinted sky, champagne twilight, violet star-patterned sheets, faintly colored like a fairy tale, lying in bed Akemi face up, her tits peaked to his mouth, her nipples distended, frosted like the daiquiris they’d drunk, by his kisses, having the time of their lives, Mitchell’s thighs bouncing between hers, her brown bush welcoming, fucking on and off all night, Mitchell just wondering, couldn’t get it off his mind, whether Akemi might still have her mind on the guy they’d dined with by the beach, nearly drunk at the restaurant, open air, at one point Akemi laughing at his joke, had slipped, leaning on an elbow to face him across the fake glass table- its surface too smooth or wet from their drinks, from condensation.
He’d grabbed her arm to steady her, and Mitchell had seen something between them like an electric charge, when lightning finds a conductor, and Akemi had braced herself with her leg, her thigh and calf taut under the table, slightly out from it, in view not just of Mitchell but of the guy, now his rival. He’d seen how her skirt slipped off her thigh, smooth sliding on smooth, like a curtain laying bare a show not yet started and her cork sandal- of course the cork heel.
You’d think that now they were back in town, out of costume, that island far away, their lives resumed, Mitchell could relax about Akemi and that guy, end his worry that she was wet from dreams of him, but there’d been talk of his coming up to the city, drink and tropical breeze and beautiful woman inspired talk but it had sounded serious. Turned out the town they lived in was where he’d grown up just like Mitchell, or so he claimed (Akemi was from the other side of the globe for real as well as out of this world). And if he was to be believed, he might also have business, he and an old friend had been talking of a photo studio, in fact his friend had already opened it and needed a collaborator. Maybe the guy would be here soon if he wasn’t already.
Mitchell tried to use his job to put away his fears about losing Akemi. She’d gone out Friday night and hadn’t come home. She was staying with her friend Hiroko but he feared a man was involved. Not for the first time (his fear or reality?). He roiled in bed, slept badly.
He usually hated work on Saturdays but this time he was glad to have the place to go, to get out of his apartment and his thoughts, his fears, the moment to moment reality.
The virus had largely lifted from the city, crisis over for good, experts agreed, but it still marked the atmosphere of the college. That morning a student of his wore a baseball cap on which was written “I lost my job.” Cheerful guy- they talked about a project he was doing- but you could see that the effects of the pandemic lingered. Economic distress, personal suffering persisted. Mitchell made a point of tracking down two newly hired teachers, a husband and wife team, to tell them, “You’re doing great” though he had never seen their work. He wanted them to feel reassured, that they had the backing of a veteran.
Mitchell liked Saturday classes but tended to take them less seriously than those during the week, The term was almost over and he was giving a final test but had forgotten to get it ready or tell the students it was coming. They might be annoyed; almost certainly confusion would follow his announcement. No one liked things sprung on them. Final test with no advance word? A test that would determine their grade, whether they passed or failed. Mitchell would just as soon not administer the exam, but it was a requirement of his department. What’s more, he’d have to record the results for posterity, include them in the odious end of term paperwork.
He arrived that morning with enough time to prepare. While working near Stella, a co-teacher, conversation began as usual between them but unwanted distraction then. Mitchell liked his coworker well enough but needed to focus. As long as they kept to light topics, he’d hold up his end of the banter.
“I’m feeling pretty confident about my teaching,” Stella said. “And it helps. And makes sense.” She laughed. “After all, I’ve been doing this job long enough!”
Short hair, weasel laugh. Stella was a woman Mitchell appreciated among his colleagues. She’d be on his side and he on hers if the chips were down- conflicts with department heads came regularly and at unexpected times and you needed allies. They’d never spent more than a few minutes together, just chatted in passing like this. She always had something to say, gossip she delivered to entertaining effect. Sometimes he had to pull away. She’d keep talking if he didn’t.
Mitchell wanted to say, “Well, in my case the problem is that confidence about my teaching ability comes and goes, is unpredictable, so it doesn’t help much.” But he decided to keep the thought to himself, didn’t want it to become a topic of interest among the faculty room that morning, as might easily happen if he went on. Stella was good-natured but pretty talkative, would tell others what he said if she found it entertaining. And voicing his self-doubts about the profession they shared would make them realer to him, an eventuality he preferred to avoid.
He’d emailed his friend Peter the night before, partly about the job, and looked at his phone now and saw a reply. Among other things Peter had written, “I think you should retire. Because of the stress.” He was joking, of course. Mitchell was nowhere near retirement.
He and Stella had been working in an alcove where a copy machine was. He walked from there to the main teachers’ room to get some supplies from his desk drawer and ended up chatting briefly with another teacher, young guy he hadn’t spoken to much before. They stood beside the big work table, the colleague’s back to it, Mitchell facing.
“I’m sorry, can you tell me your name?” It was the kind of awkward moment that occurred sometimes with his students. Though this wasn’t one. The faculty member was young, had bronzed skin color, jet black hair shaved close on the sides, a chiseled handsome face, cheerful, radiant presence. He was obviously someone who took care of himself. His hair was oiled, probably with some healthful mineral stuff, down to the follicles.
Mitchell must have heard the guy’s name at least once before. He didn’t socialize as much as some of his colleagues, but everyone knew everyone.
Mitchell and the young guy exchanged blank looks.
“….”
Someone had been walking by talking, voice drowning out the name the other spoke.
He gave it again but Mitchell still missed it. The pronunciation threw him.
“Toulouse?” he asked.
“Touluc.”
From where, Mitchell wondered. What kind of name was that? He looked like he might have Caribbean ancestry or hail from some southern European island. The racial mix wasn’t readable. Partly indigenous, Mitchell guessed but couldn’t nail down the place of origin. It occurred to him indigenous people throughout the world had some looks in common. His skin color wasn’t bronze, he noted. Olive complexion. Slight hint of a mustache. Too immature for a full one yet.
“Touluc?” Mitchell repeated.
“Yeah, Touluc. But I know this sounds strange and I’m sorry.” The colleague grinned. “But would you do me a favor and try instead to call me Maquise?”
Presumably some narcissistic reason informed his name play. It was a game he enjoyed, a frivolous one. Mitchell didn’t begrudge him his fun. He welcomed the distraction. It offered a lift, however momentary, from the tedium of the work place.
“Maquise. Maquise.” Mitchell saw he’d have trouble remembering it. Like Marquis de Sade, he said to himself and laughed inwardly.
“You’d like Maquise and his friend Luis,” the coworker Stella he’d been working with moments before added. She happened to be standing near, had overheard the conversation.
“They came out together,” she said.
So they’re gay, Mitchell understood. Stella herself was lesbian; a lot of non-heterosexual people went into academia, he’d found, thought that a reason no one had noticed or paid much attention to him getting close to women students, Akemi, that is; their involvement had been out of bounds until it wasn’t; his colleagues just didn’t care; their concerns were elsewhere.
“So you’re new here, I guess,” Mitchell said to Maquise or Touluc, feeling the need to add something before ending the exchange.
He had to be new, given how young he was.
The colleague began talking about himself. After getting his teaching degree, he’d moved to Hawaii, thinking it would be fun. “But there wasn’t much. I was disappointed. Just this boring Japanese community, you know?” Why would he assume Mitchell knew about that? Was he aware of his marriage to Akemi?
So he’d decided, he continued, to move to the big city and its excitement.
Finely trimmed eyebrows, a smile likely practiced in front of a mirror but nonetheless genuine, winning- he wasn’t a bad guy, just immature, maybe not even twenty-five, and a little taken with himself. Also, he talked too much, as many of the teachers did. Were they lonely? Listening, Mitchell realized Touluc or Maquise might not be the brightest bulb. He droned on. It got dull despite the energy he brought- you could call it effervescence if he said something a little more interesting, less predictable. And Mitchell still had work to do. For one thing, he had to figure out how to present to the students the final test for which he’d given no advance warning, avoid a rebellion; there might be complaints to the department head if he didn’t handle things right.
Work at least got his mind off unease about his marriage.
The next morning he woke before dawn and looked at the figure of Akemi in bed beside him, her dark hair and the lightness of her body below. It took only moments for the light of day to emerge enough for him to see his mistake. The darkness he’d seen was actually the deep blue of the sheet and the light below was the bed cover. Akemi wasn’t there.