Except for the red glow from the digital alarm clock, which read 4:53, the room was still dark. My eyes had adjusted to the lack of light but I could still barely make out the features of Hokuto's sleeping face. I propped myself up on an elbow and leaned close. It had been almost four months since the last time I'd seen him but it had seemed much longer. I'd expected him to look older, but all the lines and creases my eyes had traced and memorized in the past two years were the same. If anything, in the darkness, his face completely relaxed, he looked younger than his forty-six years.
I'd found him attractive since the first day I met him. He'd shown up at the bus stop one morning and in a rare gregarious moment, I struck up a conversation. Over the next six months, in twenty-five minute intervals, we'd developed a connection. Even if I hadn't found him handsome, I would have been attracted to his gentle nature. He was calm and quiet, sometimes a little shy; so different from my brutish husband.
But I did find him attractive physically too. He had a small build, long, tapered fingers and a gracefulness to his movements. I'd studied his face every chance I'd gotten, his perfect Cupid's bow lips, hooded eyes and the creases at the corners when he smiled. He had beauty in his features, something my life had sorely lacked.
To say I'd been unhappily married would be an understatement. I'd gotten married right out of high school, desperate to escape the house I'd grown up in. My father was a controlling alcoholic who had all but destroyed my mother's spirit and seemed hell bent on destroying mine as well. I thought marriage would save me but within a year my husband had taken up where my dad had left off, adding slaps and punches into the mix.
"If you had the opportunity to leave your husband, would you?"
I was 21 the day Hokuto asked me that. The question had shocked me in part because of its bluntness but also because Hokuto and I had never talked about my husband's abuse. I'd stared, open-mouthed, unable to speak while he explained the ways in which he was able and willing to help me. He'd made arrangements with his sister, if I was interested, for me to move in with her, to give her a hand during her recovery from back surgery while I looked for another job.
He'd explained that his work required him to move around a lot, and that the work he'd been doing in Boston was finished. He told me it was unlikely he'd ever see me again once he left. And then he'd pushed an envelope across the table. I'd reached for it and his hand had covered mine, pressing it down gently, flat over the envelope.
"Even if you decide not to come to Brooklyn, I want you to keep this money and use it to get away from him. Please, Sofie." He'd paused and I felt my heart pounding hard in my chest. His eyes had been full of emotion, the muscles in his face tense. "Men like that," he'd continued with uncharacteristic coldness in his voice, "don't change."
Looking at him now, in the darkness, I knew I was completely in love. Sometimes it hurt and sometimes it was lonely, and there were many times I wished I could tell him how much I felt for him, how much in love I was. But most of the time I was content with the unusual relationship we had, content to enjoy what time I got with him. He'd given me a second chance at happiness, a second chance to turn it all around. I couldn't ask for more.
In his sleep, Hokuto stirred briefly, sighing before he settled again. I pressed my face into his neck and breathed in his scent. I wondered where he'd been this time, what he'd seen. I slid my arm around his naked waist and rested my thigh over his, snuggling close. I thought back to earlier in the day when he'd appeared, unannounced and without ceremony on the path that led from the road to the Inn where I worked. I smiled, remembering how he'd looked standing there, his self-conscious smile, the clouds his breath made in the cold, how it had made my heart leap.
The few times I've tried, I've never been able to explain why I wait for him, why it's worth it. There were men who asked me out through the years. I could have gone on dates, been romanced, or spent the night with one of them. It could have eased the loneliness, but I never wanted it enough. All I wanted was Hokuto, and I was prepared to wait.
There was a freedom between us we'd never specifically spoken of or arranged. Each time he showed up out of the blue it was without the expectation that I'd take him in. And I never expected him to stay. Or even return. Neither of us owed the other a thing. There was no possessiveness, no expectations or demands, and in that unspoken arrangement we shared the time we had together without judgment or disappointment.
I kissed his cheek and slid my hand across his belly. I paused and let my hand rise and fall with his breath for a while, just enjoying his presence. I slid my hand down into his feathery, black pubic hair and over his cock. It was soft and warm. I stroked him idly, wanting to wake him, wondering if he was too tired to make love again.
I thought back on the evening, how charged the air had been between us during dinner, how tentative our first kisses had been and how quickly they'd turned to lustful advances. I thought of how his cock inside me felt as if it had awoken a live current of pleasure that coursed through my body in a strong, aching pulse.
It had been like that the first time and each time since; slow-building and intense until my orgasm shook me and I collapsed, breathless and spent. And each time I pushed aside the thought that this might be the last time and hung onto the pleasure and the moment, willing it to last.
I traced the line of his jaw with my mouth, enjoying the slight scrape of his whiskers against my lips. I moved lower and touched the tip of my tongue to his throat briefly before I kissed the soft flesh of his neck. He shifted in his sleep and made an indistinct noise. I moved lower still, drawing the blankets back as I did. I kissed my way down his chest until my lips touched the dark line of hair on his belly. I lifted his cock and drew the soft flesh into my mouth. It was warm and flaccid, but no less delightful on my tongue than when he was erect. I sucked him, enjoying the velvety softness and the elasticity of his flesh.
He shifted once more and mumbled something in Japanese. I moved my hand down between my legs and slid my fingers over my vulva. I was wet from earlier and the ache of arousal was starting to build inside me once more. I stroked myself as I continued to suck and stroke his cock. After a few minutes I could feel it hardening slightly in response to my touch, the shaft lengthening against my tongue. I moved slowly, my mind returning to the first time I'd taken him into my mouth and savored the slippery warmth between my lips.
We had been as silent as we could that night, conscious of the open windows and his sister's room just down the hall. We'd avoided speaking, communicating with our eyes and sighs, leading each other's hands and mouths to the exact spots that pleased us most. We'd avoided the squeaky bed, rocking slowly, wrapped in each other's arms in an overstuffed armchair, bent double on the floor, both of us panting and sweating, he guided me to my first ever orgasm by a man.
I hadn't been sure of how he felt until that night. He'd made it clear when he explained about the situation with his sister, that he wasn't asking me to leave my husband for him. He'd called himself unreliable, someone who couldn't be counted on to be around when needed. He spent most of his time traveling for his job, living in various places for weeks at a time, but never anywhere for much longer than that. I'd interpreted that to mean he wasn't interested in me romantically and despite how attractive I found him, I was OK with that. I wasn't interested in being with anyone now that I'd left my husband. I'd known it would take me some time to recover from what I'd been through.
