Border Crossings

Wonders of My World

US Highways

Suddenly cut loose from life as he’d known it, Aroslav strikes out aimlessly across the country, towing a small travel trailer behind his pickup truck. All he knows for certain is that he hates freeways. Freeways are for people who have a destination. For Ari, it is not about the destination, but about the journey.

Only a few weeks away from his one-time home in Seattle, he stops to have his truck washed by a team of bouncing cheerleaders fundraising for their team. Honestly, he only stopped because the truck was dirty, not because his mind was. Much to his surprise—and pleasure—he meets the young woman who will become his friend, lover, and muse as he remembers the journey of his life.

Pretending to be a travel memoir, U.S. Highways jumps from sexual escapade to impossible love affair as Aroslav makes his first circuit around the country, ultimately fulfilling a lifelong fantasy of following U.S. Highway 20 from coast to coast. And, if you believe him, fulfilling a number of other lifelong fantasies along the way! Who wouldn’t want a cute submissive blonde bikini model running around naked in his life? Unless sex was off limits. Sigh.

American Backroads

After eighteen months on the road, Aroslav continues his journey, noting that he missed a few states on his first time around. His muse, Alice, decides to invite herself along and spice up the journey a bit. Meeting old friends and relatives keeps Ari moving, but remembering adventures from his youth sometimes holds him transfixed, unable to separate one reality from the other.

One of the most productive writing times in Ari’s career, many of his characters trigger memories of the real people and events that inspired them. Whether they are all completely true or are just the way Ari wants to remember them is open for debate. After all, this is the memoir of the avatar of the pseudonym of the alter ego of the author. Believe what you dare!

Based on the true story of Aroslav’s erotic journey around America as told to Devon Layne.

Border Crossings

Aroslav was in Hawaii for the winter when he realized he was halfway to Japan. That inspired him to keep going, traveling through sixteen foreign countries as he worked his way around the world. And as he worked his way through half a dozen beautiful women. Now fully illustrated with photos from his journey (and a few filled in by others), Aroslav touches down in Japan, Thailand, Greece, Romania, Czech Republic, Germany, and Iceland—each with its own adventurous woman to expand his horizons.

Pretending to be a travel diary, this over-the-top adventure story is the memoir of the avatar of the pseudonym of the alter ego of the author. You can only believe what you dare to believe. The story of his journey is interwoven with fond memories from a past he might have lived.

Based on the true story of Aroslav’s erotic journey around the world as told to Devon Layne.

Short Stories

“Good Vibrations.” This short story in In a Few Words could be a chapter in another volume of Wonders of My World, Based on the true story of Aroslav’s erotic journey around the world as told to Devon Layne.

Aroslav finds himself caught up in the world of porn as a peripheral contributor. But he gets deeper as he meets a stripper who wants to show him the ropes. She happens to love books!

“Whatever NOLA WANTS.” This short story in In a Few Words could be a chapter in another volume of Wonders of My World, Based on the true story of Aroslav’s erotic journey around the world as told to Devon Layne.

Aroslav continues to explore the world of porn as a peripheral contributor at the convention of the adult entertainment industry. Can an invitation to visit New Orleans be what it appears to be?

Copyright ©2016 2021 by Elder Road LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted via e-mail to ElderRoadBooks@outlook.com.

First eBook Edition

ISBN 978-1-939275-55-4

1
The Real Story

27 June 2016

A-RI.

Imagine me whispering that in your ear, all drawn out and breathy like that first time in the club. Remember that night? Does it still make you horny like it does me? I’ve danced on the laps of a thousand men since that night and you are the only one I came with. I can’t believe it’s been three years.

Ah well. That was then. I haven’t even seen you in six months! You haven’t forgotten me, have you? I’ve been good and I’m not stalking, but I had to write to you. You went around the fucking world! Without me! I read every word you posted on your blog. I loved the pictures! I wanted to be with you. I wanted to take you around the world. (Get it?)

I know. I still have two years before I get my degree. But maybe we could have another couple of weeks together before school starts this fall. I’m focusing on my education and I’m working weekends, socking away the money. No drugs. No alcohol. No partying. At least not much.

A girl’s got needs, you know?

I even had a boyfriend for a while. The sex was good, but… He was so insecure. When he found out what I do for a living, he dumped me. Then, you know what he did? He had the nerve to show up at the club with a bunch of friends to watch me dance! I don’t care about that, but when I refused to do lap dances for them, he got all pissy. Big Jack took my side, though. Told him that if he didn’t think I was good enough to date, it was up to me if I didn’t think he was good enough to dance for. While he was lecturing them, I took off. I didn’t want to go walking out to the parking lot after the club closed and have a gang-rape waiting for me. Jack’s good about walking us girls to our cars, but I didn’t trust my ex not to hit him from behind. Or follow me to a lonely stretch and run me off the road.

That’s behind me now. The ass flunked out and hasn’t been seen since.

So. Anyway. I read about your trip. Come on, Ari! I know that wasn’t all that happened! I know you. We’ve been sharing things for years. But when it comes to this trip, all you talk about is this temple you saw and that monastery and some art museum.

Where’s the real story? The one where you fuck cute girls in every country you visited? Like you did me.

I want the details. All that primary research you did. Remember? Remember my taste? Remember what it felt like to sink your cock into my nineteen-year-old pussy? Am I still the youngest girl you’ve fucked since you started traveling?

I’m twenty-one now. I don’t want you to forget me. But I want to hear about the girls of the world that you had on this trip. You know how the idea of other girls turns me on. Write it for me, will you, Ari? Please? Just for me? Maybe I could come to that nudist park you’re headed to this summer. I could take a couple weeks right before school starts and read the story. Okay?

Kisses,

Alice

THAT’S THE eMAIL I got about two days after I finished my round-the-world adventure. And yes, I’ll bring Alice to the nudist resort where I’m living for the summer. Mmm.

This book is based on the true story of my trip around the world. It’s the story Alice wanted to hear. Reality and fantasy are all one to me. It’s the story of my life, the way I imagined it. Which is to say in bits and pieces, and through rose-tinted lenses. When something reminds me of someone I knew, I sort of get lost in the memory for a while. So, the adventures in this story get interrupted as I drift off into memory.

I SUPPOSE I should explain some things before I jump into the middle of the story. Especially since this is book three and you might not have read one and two yet. Read them in any order. I’ve always wanted to travel. I wintered in Hawaii this year and, with a little encouragement from Alice, decided I’d keep going west around the world. Alone. Alice. Amazing young woman. She keeps cropping up in my life. We both agreed, though, that I needed to make this journey alone.

Alone is what I’ve been since the end of my last marriage a few years ago. I’m looking for my next future ex-wife. Yeah, sometimes life sucks but sometimes you find a girl who will, too. I bought an ‘around the world’ airline ticket to take me from Honolulu to Bangkok, Bangkok to Athens, and Amsterdam back to my Pacific Northwest origin. I figured I’d just take the train across Europe. The bonus was that I could stop in any of the cities where I had to change planes. Hence my time in Japan and Iceland.

I’m a writer and at the end of my last marriage, I woke up to an epiphany. I could write anywhere. Duh! So why was I doing it from a basement in Seattle? Treasure and I sold the house and I bought a truck and travel trailer. I hit the road. I’d been on the road two and a half years when I decided to just store the truck and trailer for a season and keep going west.

To extend my travel around the world, all I needed was my computer and cell phone. The cell phone was worthless for phone calls. Who would I call in a country where I didn’t know anyone and couldn’t speak the language? But you can buy prepaid SIMs with at least 100mb of data usage in almost any airport in the world. It’s hard to use 100mb of bandwidth on a cell phone in a week if you aren’t watching movies and downloading music. That hundred megs bought me access to Google maps on my phone and that was how I managed to navigate.

I spent Sunday night in Honolulu because it was cheaper to book one-way from the Big Island than to include the trip in the ticket around the world. Go figure. Monday morning first thing I was at the airport with my backpack, my Panama hat jammed on my head, and my passport in hand. The JAL flight took off at nine a.m. and landed in Tokyo at one p.m. Four hours. Cool, huh. Except nine hours had elapsed and it was the next day. Stupid International Date Line! I lost leap year! So, March 1, 2016 found me in Japan.

ALL THREE Wonders of My World books were first released as serials at StoriesOnline.net. They owe a huge amount to the volunteer editors at that site and to the continued comments and suggestions of my readers. I originally wrote Border Crossings before I wrote either US Highways or American Backroads, but now you have access to all three. This could easily put a travel bug in you! Will there be more? I’m not done traveling yet!

So, this is it. The memoir of the avatar of the pseudonym of the alter ego of an author (Parse that!) who has been around the world and over the top. I hope you enjoy my adventures as much as I have! Or almost as much.

And my disclaimer: Only the names, places, and events have been altered to protect me—I mean, the innocent. Now let’s get on with the show!

Enjoy!

Aroslav

2
Ani Mai

1 March 2016

“MASTER WAN TU! YOU CAME!”

Not yet, but I definitely want to now. There was no question that the little Asian doll was talking to me. She was standing directly in front of me. In my personal space. Well, just about everything in Japan was like that. I only barely top out at six feet tall and I could still see over the heads of just about everyone on the island. This vision was not the tiniest Asian I’d ever met. I’d guess about ٥'٣". She was no smaller than many Western women I’ve known. I’d just stepped off the train from Narita to Odawara via Tokyo. I was amazed that the girl spoke to me in the first English I’d heard since I left the airport.

Her costume, though… My first thought of a traditional Japanese costume would be Geisha. Wrong. Try Cat Woman. I don’t mean the character that is a foil for Batman. I mean a woman dressed as one of the sexiest looking pussies I’d ever seen.

She had ears! Okay, that wasn’t the first thing I noticed. She was up close and I was looking down at her and she had cleavage. Lots of it. And below that her navel. And her sword. And her collar and chain. And her tail. Oh yes. There was leather clothing involved. A little warrior outfit. Very little. Let’s get back to her ears.

 

I’M NOT UNFAMILIAR with costuming and makeup. I spent a lot of time getting some theater degrees years ago. A wasted effort, but informative, nonetheless. I’d studied with a master in the makeup arena. We’d even done animal costumes for Reynard the Fox, a kids’ show that involved a lot of colorful costumes and animal makeup. (And the actress playing Reynard!) These ears were masterfully done. I couldn’t see how they were attached. Her shoulder-length hair grew naturally around them, it seemed. The fur on them must have been made from her own hair. The match was perfect. I found myself reaching to pet them automatically and snatched my hand back. She grinned at me.

“As much as I would like to be the person for whom you are waiting, I’m afraid I am not who you think I am,” I confessed. It hurt to let this opportunity pass by. I wanted to sit someplace and have her curl up in my lap so I could pet this little pussy. All over.

“You are funny, Master. I have been waiting all day for the gaijin giant with a beard and a big hat. I have your picture.” She held out a printout and I had to chuckle. It was a cartoon. That Japanese style they call Manga. Sure enough, I was in the picture… or at least a representation that could be taken for me. I’ve already mentioned that I wear a broad-brimmed Panama hat. I’m traveling where the weather is warm and my hair is a little thin on top. I wore cream-colored drawstring pants for comfort while flying. I had a tropics-weight white shirt, worn untucked, and in case of a sudden chill, I had a lightweight linen jacket over my shoulder. The cartoon image the girl showed me was an uncanny likeness, though I didn’t wear open sandals when I was flying; I was still in my hiking shoes.

There was more in the drawing than my so-called likeness. Next to my character was a striking image of the girl in front of me. As I carried a bag over my shoulder, I also held her leash. She looked feral in the cartoon, ready to pounce but restrained by the leash. Above my picture were the English words ‘Master Wan Tu.’ Above the girl-cat was written ‘Ani Mai.’ I handed her the picture.

“I appreciate your interest, but I’m not this person,” I said.

“Don’t you want to play with me?” she asked. She looked crestfallen.

“Of course I do,” I responded quickly. “But I have to tell you, I am not a wealthy man. I’m a traveler, but I can’t afford…”

“You said it wouldn’t cost me anything extra to be with you. I brought enough money only to pay my own expenses.”

“Oh.” Clever. I’m so out of my depth. “I didn’t mean to imply that you had to pay anything. Only that I am in the same boat. I can’t afford any extravagance, including… uh… paying for company.”

Her eyes got big and beneath her makeup I could see her blush.

“You really aren’t him, are you!” she said. She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “That means he is not coming. I wanted to have fun LARPing. It’s a big gathering. We would have so much fun.”

“LARPing?” Where had I heard that term?

“Live Action Role Playing,” she explained. “We all have characters and there is an adventure. Probably a quest. We’ll make alliances and have enemies and try not to be captured and… Would you consider being my master for the games?”

Oh! At least now I had some kind of context. And it appeared that I already had the needed costume. Plus, spending time in the company of Ani Mai? The writing I planned to do this week could wait.

“If you will consider teaching me everything I need to know in order to play, it sounds like fun and I’d be happy to participate. When?”

“Right now!” she said happily. She held out the end of her leash. “Master Wan Tu, will you consent to be my master and guide, protecting me from evil and using me to smite your enemies? By accepting my leash, you make me yours for the duration.”

“I have no great skills and no weapons,” I said, “but such as I have is at your disposal.” I accepted the end of the leash and watched a peculiar change come over her. She had been innocent and playful—even a little frightened—but as soon as I took the leash, her stance changed. She seemed to become more centered and alert, almost ready for battle. I wondered if the swords she wore were props or real.

“I am your weapon, Master,” she said. “And your guide. Point me where you wish to go and I will find it.”

I’d found a Rent-a-Bed room for $40 a night and booked it, sight unseen, while Alice was with me in Hawaii. The pictures showed sliding panels opening up onto a view of Mount Fuji. I plugged in the coordinates as soon as I had a SIM for my phone and followed the step-by-step directions to Odwara.

I showed her the map and she smiled.

“I know where this is. Let us find your tatami and then some food. You must be tired.” I hoisted my pack and followed my new pet.

MY HOST did not seem at all surprised to see me with a woman costumed as a cat on a leash. She led me to a room and slipped out of her geta sandals before sliding the screens aside and entering. Ani Mai held me back and knelt to untie my hiking shoes and remove them before slipping out of her own geta and following me into the small room. It was a simple room with bamboo mats on the floor. The single bed was just a mattress or pad about six inches thick in the center of the room. A low, black lacquered table sat against the wall with two sort-of chairs facing the open screens. I say ‘sort-of chairs’ because they were really just a cushion that sat on an L-shaped frame with no legs but had a back to lean against. A concession to westerners, I thought. Against the other wall was a wicker chest where Ani Mai immediately helped me put my pack. She dropped her shoulder bag next to it.

“Mr. Aroslav-san, I did not realize you were here for the games, but welcome you. Would you like a cushion for Neko-chan? Or will she sleep at your feet?”

“I… we… are you sleeping here, Ani Mai-san?” I stumbled. Ani Mai sank to a crouch, not quite down on her knees.

“If it pleases my master, I would sleep on a cushion between him and the door,” Ani Mai said softly.

“Thank you, Ito-san,” I said to my host. “I guess she will need a sleeping cushion. Please excuse my hesitance as I am not completely familiar with customs or with the game.”

“I think you have a good instructor,” she laughed. “Such a ferocious-looking Neko-chan. I would offer the kitty some milk, but I think she would prefer raw meat.” Her laughter went with her as she retreated. I stood looking out the screens at the view of Mount Fuji. It was breathtaking. I realized I still had the leash in my hand and that Ani Mai was still kneeling/crouching at my side.

“Um… Ani Mai-san, I can’t just keep hold of your leash all the time. What am I supposed to do?” I asked. She giggled.

“I’ll show you, Master,” she said. “Loop the leash around my neck, and clip it here so it turns into a necklace. When I wear it like this, I can move around in the room or even go on errands for you.”

“You don’t need to act like a servant,” I said.

“It would be my pleasure,” she answered. “It’s all part of the game. Let me show you this, as well. There are three positions for the leash. The first you are familiar with. You hold the leash and I go wherever you go and am never more than a step away from you. I am your pet and your protector. When you clip the leash as a necklace, I am free to roam as long as I attend your needs. When you unclip the leash from my collar, I am a hunter. Much of our time on the quest will be with me off the leash and prowling around so I can attack our enemies.”

“Are you sure you want such a novice as your companion on this adventure?” I asked.

“I am finding your company stimulating already,” she smiled. “May I unpack for you?”

“Um… I guess so. Are you sure?”

“You’d better stand very near to me and watch to be sure things are cared for the way you wish and that I don’t get into trouble,” she said. Yes. Very near. I swear the girl made a complete circuit around me, brushing against me like a cat. She knelt to unpack my bag. Uncertain what else to do, I found myself petting the back of her head as I watched her work. Occasionally, she would pause to rub her cheek against my hand or knee. I was sure she purred.

A Long Time Ago: First Times

I WAS SIXTEEN and went to a special boarding school in Colorado to study theater for the summer. Well, I had to study a bunch of other stuff, too, but I went to the school to study acting and playwriting. The high school I went to in Indiana didn’t have a theater program, but I was a star at speech contests. I was poor, but the college prep school gave me a scholarship. It was a weird summer. We performed Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood. It’s a huge cast and I played six roles, like all the other actors did.

Ally McNamara, our dramatic theory instructor, lectured us on play structure and character development. “I want you to ask six characters to tell you about their first time. I’m not answering the questions you’re asking,” she said when we started raising our hands. “Just figure it out for yourself. Six characters of your choosing telling about their first time.” How could I write about how six different people lost their virginity when I hadn’t lost mine yet? That’s when I got the point. She didn’t say first time of what. Just first time. One character’s answer found its way into my story Redtail years later.

Well, it wasn’t at all what I expected. The first time I looked at it, I thought it was pretty disgusting. And slimy. And the smell—it was definitely something you had to get used to. I’d made it this far, though, and I wasn’t going to back down now. I kind of held my breath and stuck my tongue in and slurped. It took a couple minutes and when I could breathe again, I grabbed a shot of tequila. A minute later I dove in again. It’s definitely an acquired taste, but after eight times, I was feeling pretty satisfied. Hell, I was a connoisseur. I hadn’t even had tequila after the last four.

So yeah. Not exactly what I expected, but I’d eat oysters again.

If you live long enough, I guess there could be a first time for everything. It was certainly my first time to go LARPing with a cosplay cat warrior. I wondered what other firsts she had in mind for me.

Back to Ani Mai

I CHOSE TO LEAVE Ani Mai’s leash in its necklace position when we went out to eat dinner. She insisted that I maintain my cosplay when we went out because other players would be gathering in the town and we might encounter them. I did, at her encouraging, switch to my sandals. She directed me to a very nice restaurant and ordered food in rapid Japanese. I had no idea what I was getting to eat, but it was tasty and it didn’t cost more than ¥3,000. Ani insisted that we split that amount as that was her agreement.

As soon as we were back to ‘our’ room, Ani disappeared into the bathroom. The bathroom was about the same size as my sleeping chamber and I had discovered that it also had screens that would open onto the beautiful vista. That side of the home was completely sheltered from prying eyes, so there was an illusion of openness while having protected privacy. I heard the water running and assumed Ani was taking the first turn at cleaning up for the night. I popped open my laptop to find out everything about LARPing that I could. I didn’t get far before Ani was next to me.

Her leather costume was gone and she was wrapped in a simple white silk robe. The cat costume was sexy as hell with the amount of skin it bared, but when she moved across the room in that robe, I could tell there was nothing but Ani under it.

“Your bath is ready, Master,” she said softly.

“Oh! For me? Thank you, Ani-san.” I hoisted myself off of the little cushion chair and stood to go into the bathroom. Ani followed me. “Um… thank you,” I repeated, expecting her to leave. Instead she began undressing me. I wasn’t wearing much clothing. Shirt, slacks, and briefs were removed rapidly while I was still trying to figure out what was going on. She folded my clothes neatly and held my hand as I stepped into the tub.

The water was great! Since I’m a nudist when I’m in the US, it doesn’t bother me that much to be naked in the same room as a woman, but Ani was moving with the same catlike grace and sensuality that she had exhibited all day. Then she dropped her robe as well. Holy shit!

I’d been looking down her cleavage on and off ever since I met the girl. Now I was looking at the full round mounds that created it, complete with their dark areolae and hard nipples. And down farther, the cleft peeking through her well-trimmed pubic hair. Her heavy collar and leash were gone, but in their place, she wore a long gold chain, draped and hooked exactly like the leash had been. Her tail was gone, but the ears remained.

“Let me bathe you, Master,” she said. I wasn’t about to object. There was a small stool in the tub that I sat on while she leaned into me and washed my hair, my back, and my pits. She had a little bucket she used to pour water over me to rinse. All the time she worked efficiently to cleanse me, her bare breasts were brushing against my back. I was sure I felt the heat of her sex against me.

I was featuring a prominent attraction when she took my hand and helped me out of the bath and under the spray of a shower to rinse. She used the detachable showerhead to make sure I was fully rinsed. She neither focused on my erection nor shied away from it as her hands stripped the water from my skin and then welcomed me into a warm and fluffy towel to dry. I moved to return the gesture, but she simply pushed me away as she pulled on her light robe. She wasn’t all that wet, but the moisture drew the fabric close to her body, clinging to her erect nipples and her round bottom.

She didn’t give me a robe, but led me naked to my sleeping mat where she directed me to lie on my stomach. I noticed that another mat had been prepared next to mine, though this one was a much smaller oval cushion with a light blanket on it. It suddenly struck me how much it looked like a… pet bed.

“You can’t mean to tell me you intend to sleep on that!” I said as I settled down where she directed me.

“Where else would your faithful pussy be?” she asked with a giggle. Before I could answer, her hands started moving on my back. Oh, god! Heaven! I had no idea I had so many knotted muscles, but with a combination of rubbing and pressure, I was soon relaxing into my very comfortable mattress. I saw her robe pool on the floor just in front of my face before she stretched her body out fully on top of mine. The pressure felt good. Her naked breasts felt wonderful. I was ready to roll over and see if I could get the other side pressed against her when she lifted her body and I felt her tiny feet in the small of my back as she stood. She carefully placed one foot in front of the other as she straightened my spine. I felt every crack of my joints and while she was still practically dancing on my shoulders, I fell asleep.

MY EYES OPENED with the dawn. The silk screens drawn across the doors and windows filtered the early morning sunlight but did little to block it out. I felt like I’d slept for days and was filled with energy. I rolled onto my back and bumped into Ani Mai. I jumped back, hoping I hadn’t disturbed her sleep. Her little bed had been drawn up close to mine and she was curled up with the light blanket covering her legs and hips. As I looked at her, my eyes naturally came to rest on her generous bosom. I didn’t have a lot of experience with Asian women, but it struck me that she was a little more bountiful up top than most of the Japanese women I’d seen. Of course, I hadn’t been quite as open about staring at the others as I was at these. They were perfectly round and inviting. Ani’s skin was a couple of shades darker than mine and her areolae was a little darker yet. It was capped by thick nipples that stood out in the cool morning air.

I’d been so intent on my visual stimulus that I hadn’t seen her hand move, but I felt it on my hand. She pulled me up to place a hand directly on her right breast where I reflexively squeezed just a little. I looked up to her face and her eyelids open only a slit.

“Boys always need to check to see if they are real,” she said. “Can you tell?” I squeezed again. They were real.

“You shouldn’t really let me feel up your breasts,” I croaked. “I might get the wrong idea.”

“Or the right idea,” she smiled. She pushed my hand away after I’d circled and touched her nipple. “You’ll have to test the other one later.” She jumped up and I watched her bare ass disappear into the bathroom. My hand automatically drifted to my stiffening cock, but I decided against more than a couple little tugs. Who knew what the day might bring?

“We should stretch,” she said when she came out of the bathroom. She had a tiny pair of pink panties on, but was still topless. She’d removed her gold chain and once again wore the leather collar and leash. “I want to be dressed before Ito-san comes with breakfast. It won’t make a difference for you, but she kind of likes girls.”

“You knew Ito before I arrived, I take it,” I said.

“She is a friend of my mother’s. They often take part in the games. I don’t think she planned to play this weekend. Maybe as innkeeper.” We stretched and I followed her moves. My erection wasn’t flagging. She giggled. “Do you fight with that bo-staff?” she asked.

“No. It’s strictly made for love.”

“Well, you’d better go in and shower and dress. Maybe you should exercise it in there before Ito-san gets here with breakfast.”

I showered and dressed, but didn’t do any other exercises. When I came out of the bathroom, our beds had been neatly made up and pushed aside. Ito was, indeed, placing bowls of food on our little table. Ani was fully arrayed in her leather warrior outfit, including the cat’s tail. I realized it was actually part of the skirt. Very clever. She had not armed herself yet.

Ito made several suggestions regarding our costumes and wanted to see Ani’s drawings. She disappeared while we were eating, but before we were finished came back with a satchel like the one in the drawing. It was filled with food and water for our day of play. Ani and I thanked her profusely. Before we left the room, I unclipped the leash from its necklace position and held it in my hand. Ani dropped into character immediately and led me out into the morning sun.

LARPing. Well, I was on a new adventure. There were close to 100 of us in the forested park near Mount Fuji.

If you’re not familiar with the area, going to Mount Fuji is just like going to Mount Rainier or Denali, or what have you. You don’t really go to the mountain. It’s huge and rugged. Climbing it is not a game. But there is a lot of parkland between Odawara and the mountain, fifty miles away. We boarded a bus chartered for the event at the train station. In the two hours it took us to drive to Lake Yamanaka, we stopped at nearly every village and hotel along the way to pick up more gamers.

And what a variety. As hard as it is to say, Ani’s was not the sexiest of the costumes, nor the only one that exposed acres of skin. For either men or women. Ani explained that for a lot of cosplayers, it was an opportunity to dress in ways they would never dare in real life. The sexier the better. There were a lot of warriors. For many of them, the ‘armor’ only covered the parts they would be arrested for exposing. Like Ani, women who were dressed in such daring costumes were accompanied by men or, in some cases, other women who were responsible for them. But not all men were the masters. Some women, dressed in diaphanous gowns, held the leashes of men dressed as monsters, warriors, and ferocious beasts.

Fantasy armor is exactly that. A fantasy. I was raised on vintage Sci-Fi and loved the fantasy art of Boris Vallejo or Zoltan Boris and Gabor Szikszai. I could never figure out how their Amazonian warrior women kept those little patches of leather attached to their nipples, or what good the armor was supposed to do in the first place. Well, most of the armor on these characters could have walked off the cover of one of those old Fantasy mags.

There were, of course, also a fair number of standard fantasy characters—elves, dwarfs, clerics, minstrels, Samurai, and others. The ride on the bus gave us the opportunity to get to know some of our counterparts and Ani deftly organized allies and explorer groups as we got acquainted. She kept me informed and translated conversations rapidly when no English was being spoken.

At the launch point, we met the game master who distributed the packets with instructions for the quest. These included a GPS download with various caches marked on it. Wouldn’t GPS have changed the adventure in Lord of the Rings! Nonetheless, at least that was something I felt capable of handling, unlike all the fantasy gaming.

And then we were off. I unclipped Ani’s leash and she became a prowling predator, stalking around me and searching for enemies. Ani was very good at prowling and spotting people while I crashed through the forest. She even stole us a snack, though I was sure they had been intentionally left for the gamers. We made a few captures. I was captured and Ani immediately captured my captor and released me. I found her engaged in a sword fight with an orc, and according to the rules of engagement, I was able to add ‘power’ to her strikes and the orc fell back in retreat.

“We make a good team,” she said as we sat in a safe zone where bento boxes had been prepared for the players. “We have half our talismans and your power has increased to double what it was when we started. I love you!” She punctuated her declaration with a sudden kiss that left me speechless. Then we were off for the second part of the day.

We didn’t win the game. In fact, I’m not sure how they determined the winners. We collected all our talismans. We even captured some enemies. Mostly, I followed Ani Mai’s sweet little butt in her leather armor with her swishing tail, and read off GPS coordinates or negotiated the release of captives. The bus ride back to the city was loud and boisterous with people reliving the campaign—mostly in Japanese.

“How is it that you speak English so well?” I asked Ani as we joined the crowd at a tiny restaurant. We sat on the floor around low tables. I offered to refasten her leash into a necklace, but she told me that I should only do that when we were alone. She laughed at me.

“That would be because I went to DeKalb High School in Illinois and graduated from Brandeis University with a degree in East Asian Studies,” she said. “Brandeis is where I started LARPing. We’d go up into the Berkshires for a weekend and play fantasy games.”

“What does one do with a degree in East Asian Studies?” I asked.

“This one works mostly in sports. There is a huge exchange of professional athletes between the US and Japan, especially in baseball. But that isn’t the only sport, or the only country involved. My job is to prepare Japanese athletes for life in America and to help American, Brazilian, German, and Canadian athletes adjust to life in Japan. It can be rewarding,” she said.

We enjoyed our dinner and I led Ani home.

THERE WAS NO HESITATION this time. As soon as I’d attached the lead end of the leash in necklace fashion, Ani stripped out of her clothes and headed for the bathroom. A short time later she summoned me for my bath. Once again, she had set the leather collar and leash aside and wore the gold necklace. She still had her cat ears on. Clever. She made sure I could tell she no longer wore the tail. The view was outstanding.

It takes more than just seeing a pretty woman to get a rise out of me. If I got an erection every time I saw a beautiful woman, I would way exceed the four-hour limit. On the other hand, a beautiful, naked woman undressing me and crawling into the bath behind me to gently scrub my back and wash my hair while her bare breasts poke holes in my shoulders is definitely enough. She got me out of the tub and into the shower to rinse, then wrapped me in a fluffy towel. She led me back to my bed and flopped on her stomach in the middle of it. She handed me her bottle of oil.

“Your turn,” she said. “I’ve been crouching and prowling all day and my back is sore.”

In case you are young, inexperienced, or just stupid, let me say that you should never turn down the opportunity to oil and massage a naked girl’s back. That is just a general rule.

I knelt beside her and oiled my hands. Starting at her neck I rubbed at the knots in her muscles and watched her relax.

A Long Time Ago: First Massage

WHEN I WAS IN GRAD SCHOOL, I went through a phase of learning to become a masseur. I read every book on the subject I could find. Massage for Beginners. Sensual Massage. Body Relaxation Techniques. They were all fuel for my fingers. And there was never a lack of subjects to experiment on in the Theater Department. I’d started when I was still with Paula but she was never that appreciative of my talents. So, I’d just wander around the pit (our theater lounge) around dinner time. Lots of people would show up with snacks or dinner before they had to go to shops and rehearsals. I’d just circulate around the room and give shoulder and neck rubs. I sometimes think I should have made that my career in theater instead of playwriting.

I treated everyone equally. I mean, actors, costumers, designers, techs. Male and female. Gay and straight. Grad and undergrad. Most of our interactions were non-verbal. One person would be under my fingertips while another looked on, moaned, and pointed to her shoulders. There were some damned beautiful people in that lounge.

Like Judy. She was a junior when I started my PhD. Lighting was her career focus. She lit one of my shows and the lighting was better than the script. The cast and crew decided to go skating on Sunday after the show closed. I hadn’t been on skates since I was a kid and then the skates had two pairs of wheels front and back. Having four wheels in a row was hard. I never liked ice skating either. Judy wasn’t having any better luck than I was and grabbed my hand to steady herself. That almost had disastrous results, but we both stabilized and started a long slow roll out and back. When other members of our group started passing us going the other direction, we turned around and followed them back. By the time we returned to the rental shop, the rest had already gone. My legs and lower back ached. It was obvious that Judy felt the same way. Walking in our sneakers didn’t feel the same after being on wheels.

“I don’t think I’ll do that again,” Judy said.

“I have to agree. It’s not the way I remember it as a kid,” I answered.

“I’m glad we got a chance to just talk to each other, though. Even if it means I won’t walk straight for a week.” I had a thought. Brilliant!

“My apartment’s six blocks from here. Think you can walk that far? I’ll give you a backrub and then a lift home,” I said.

“I could walk twice that for one of your massages,” she said.

When we got to my place, I poured us cheap wine from a box. Then I prepared a spot in the middle of the floor by hauling all my blankets in and stacking them on top of each other to make a pad. Judy stretched out on her stomach and I started to rub her back.

“I could use oil, but I don’t want to get it on your blouse,” I said. That was all it took. In a second, the blouse was gone and she lay there in just her bra and shorts. I started with her shoulders and neck. I could feel her tense spots reflected in where I was aching, but frankly, I hadn’t had my hands on a girl’s skin in several weeks. That was when Paula—ex-wife number one—emptied the apartment and moved to California. I skipped down to her lower back where I knew Judy was aching as much as I was and worked my way up her spine to her bra straps. “Do you want me to rub under the strap?” I asked. She reached behind her and deftly opened the catch. As I started toward the suddenly bare area, she surprised me by pulling the bra from under her and tossing it over by her shirt.

Given the opportunity to touch her beautiful bare torso, I gave it my all. I did long strokes from the small of her back all the way up to her neck and then reversed outward across her shoulders and down her arms. The next time I went back to her waist, she pushed the elastic band down on her butt so I could get right to the base of her spine. The view from this angle was superb, even to the bulge of her breasts flattened outward beneath her body. The next time I moved down, the waistband of her shorts had sprung back up to her waist and this time she simply pushed them all the way down and kicked them off.

She wore low-cut panties. Yellow with little flowers on the elastic band. They were low enough that I could move my hands all the way down to and into her crack. She moaned again. After making sure her back was fully relaxed, I moved down to her feet and worked on her legs. She was a little ticklish, but held her foot still enough that I could work on her arch, then up onto her calves. As I worked up her legs, she automatically spread them a little so I could massage the inside of her thighs as well. I noticed the gusset of her panties was a darker yellow than the rest. Damp. I unsuccessfully commanded my cock to relax as I kneaded her tight muscles right up to her butt ledge.

“Do you want me to do your butt, too?” I asked softly. I wasn’t sure if she was even awake. If she was asleep, I’d just pull a sheet out of the closet and cover her.

“Yeah,” she moaned. “Do it.” She pushed the tiny panties down as far as her fingertips would reach and I took them from there off her legs. When they were gone, her legs were slightly farther apart and I could see the source of the dampness on her underwear. Shit! I had a naked woman in front of me letting me rub oil all over her. I moved between her legs and applied both hands to those amazing round buttocks. I found the release points on the sides and gently manipulated them until I was pressing deeply. Her legs relaxed out even farther.

It was a hot day and I’d shed my T-shirt before we ever got started. As I did long strokes all the way from her shoulders to her ankles, I considered removing my shorts as well. I reminded myself that she was setting the pace. She was just using my hands. Each stroke, though, brought my face above her butt and the aroma of her aroused sex wafted up to my nostrils. I sat back and moved to her side as I softly petted her back and butt.

“Feel better now?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. That was wonderful.”

“Do you want me to do the front, too?” I whispered. She turned her head and looked up into my eyes. I’m sure it was only a second or two, but I felt like I was locked into her gaze for an eternity. She didn’t answer, she simply rolled over and settled herself. She was still looking at me as I scanned the fit and firm body in front of me. Her light brown pubic hair was a little wild and matted as it disappeared between her thighs. Her tummy was a little concave as she lay on her back. Her breasts pushed outward a little, but were firm with nipples that showed her arousal. It was certainly not cold enough in my apartment to cause that. I started at her feet once again and worked my way up her legs, boldly stroking her inner thighs all the way to the pubic thatch.

“No man has ever seen me naked before,” she whispered. That was a shock. I knew she was twenty-one because she’d been carded when the cast went out for a drink. “Even my doctor is a woman. Am I… pretty?” she asked. How was it that beautiful women always seemed to doubt whether men found them pretty? I didn’t think she was fishing for a compliment. She was really that insecure.

“Judy, you know the answer to that. It’s not just the shape of your body that is beautiful. It’s you. Even if you didn’t have perfect breasts and long silky legs, you’d be beautiful. You’d be beautiful even if I wasn’t massaging your naked body.” I finished working on her legs, brushing right up against the matted fur where they joined. I noticed that her eyes had drifted down to my cock, straining against my shorts.

I moved to her side and began working on her stomach. If you’ve never actually had a massage, you probably aren’t aware of how incredible a stomach massage can be. I worked under the lip of her pelvis to relax the psoas muscle. That’s what holds a lot of the tension in people’s backs. Then there is the digestive tract itself. The stomach is a sensitive organ that sits right up below the rib cage. The intestines wind around below it. Simply having hands rotating on the stomach is a fantastic experience. For women, it has the added benefit of massaging the ovaries.

I shifted around behind Judy’s head and lifted her to rest back against my knees. She squirmed and tugged at my shorts.

“Scratchy,” she said simply. I had them off in an instant, leaving me in just my tighty-whities. She settled back against me, firmly touching my erection. Her head was applying pressure to my cock as I reached forward to massage her breasts and up to her throat.

There’s a difference between massaging a woman’s breasts and pawing them in the back seat. I was seriously doing a massage—that’s what I kept telling myself. Breasts are fatty tissue with a huge bundle of nerves running up to the nipples. The muscles are beneath the fat. But you can’t just push in on the breast to massage the muscle. Bundle of nerves, remember? But pushing around from the sides, below, the center, and above, you can actually do a pretty good job of relaxing the pecs. On the other hand, they are breasts and just made to be cupped in the palm of your hand. Which I did. I ran slow strokes up the sides of her breasts with my fingertips, brushing the nipples as they rose. I ran spirals around them, never quite touching the sensitive points.

“Ari, you could almost make me come doing that,” Judy rasped.

“Do you want to come?” I asked. “This time is yours.” She hesitated and took a long shuddering breath.

“Yes,” she whispered.

I slowly trailed the fingers of my right hand down her abdomen, giving her plenty of time to stop me if it wasn’t what she wanted. My left hand continued its gentle manipulation of her nipples. She relaxed back against me, her arms splayed out and her legs drifting farther apart. There were no obstacles to moving my hand into her bush where I parted her wet lips.

Judy might have thought she was ready to come from the touches on her breasts, but her orgasm built slowly. I touched all around her vaginal opening, gently stroking her inner lips and smoothing them outward. I circled her hooded clit, not applying pressure, but just lightly grazing it. Her breathing became more rapid and she turned her head. Awareness dawned on me and I realized she was rubbing her cheek against my leaking cock while I touched her.

“Yes,” she panted as I slowly applied more pressure to the sides of her clit, held between my index and middle fingers. “Yes, there. There. Oh!” She breathed deeply, held it, and then let it rush out with a cry that nearly stopped my heart. She was so beautiful when she came. A bright flush infused her pale skin. She pressed her head back into my stomach, feeling the head of my cock give a little jump. She stiffened and then, as if she hadn’t gotten enough, she pressed her hips up into my fingers and rode them to another orgasm. “Oh, God!” she moaned.

 

Back to Ani Mai

“SHE MUST HAVE BEEN PRETTY SPECIAL,” Ani said softly.

“What?”

“Whoever it was that could make you daydream about her when you have your hands oiling my naked body,” she said. “She must have been very special.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Lover? Wife? Tell me.”

“She was the first woman I gave a full body massage to. Years ago.”

“I should write her a thank you note. You are very good.”

“I have no idea where she is or I’d give you her address.”

“Did she enjoy it as much as I am?” Ani asked. I chuckled.

“More, I think.”

“So, you were lovers.”

“Not exactly. We met together once a month so I could give her a massage. That happened until we graduated—her with a bachelor’s and me with a PhD.”

“But you didn’t make love?”

“She was a virgin. I know it sounds strange in this day and age, but it was important to her. She wrote me a beautiful note a few months after we parted. She’d found her true love. She thanked me. Said she would never have had the courage to take her clothes off when it came time to make love if it hadn’t been for the way I’d treated her. So, yes. She was very special,” I said. I truly hoped she was still happy, wherever she had ended up.

Ani rolled over on her back, exposing her lovely breasts and trimmed bush to me. She unfastened the link that turned her chain into a necklace and handed me the end. I caught my breath.

“Please make me feel as good as you made her feel, Master Wan Tu.” I placed my free hand on her stomach. “And I am not a virgin.”

I AWOKE IN THE MORNING with my cat woman curled against me. I swear, she was purring. I stroked her soft skin. The chain was still in my hand. It was a game to Ani, but like me the previous night, she fell asleep under my hands after she had received her pleasure. Yet, the chain. She made it clear that she belonged to me as long as I held her leash—even the figurative one.

I pushed her legs apart and she rolled sleepily onto her back. Then she gasped as my tongue found its mark. She wasn’t expecting to wake up quite that way. Still, she was juicy from the night before and my finger slid easily into her as I lapped her juices.

“Oh, Master!” she gasped. It took much less time for her to rise to her peak this morning than it had as I massaged her the night before. But the night before, I’d just wanted to bring her fulfillment. Perhaps I was remembering too much of Judy’s responses. After spending the night with a hard-on rubbing against the leg, she had carelessly thrown across me, I was intent on making her ready. I got her near her peak twice before I crawled up between her legs.

“Ani Mai, you must tell me now if you don’t want me to make love to you,” I said I rubbed against her folds, getting wetter with each pass.

“Take me, Master,” she said. “Take meeee!” I pushed into her in one long thrust, bottoming out well before I’d run my entire length into her. “I was afraid we would go the whole weekend and you wouldn’t make love to me,” she whispered in my ear.

“I wanted to be sure,” I said.

“You could have had me the moment I put my leash in your hand. Master Wan Tu, we could have been doing this all weekend!”

I didn’t know how much more time we had, but I planned to spend as many of the minutes as possible with my cock in this velvet vise.

“Fuck your little pussy,” she said. “This little pussy belongs to you.”

My first time didn’t take long and she was with me when I exploded. I didn’t stop, but kept pumping into her. She didn’t stop either, but each time I came near a climax, she peaked again. I emptied myself again before we broke to lounge in the bath and wash the sweat from our bodies. Ito-san brought breakfast for us while we were in the bath.

FOOD—EVEN BREAKFAST—is special in Japan. Not just the menu, but the act of eating. Ito had another lovely breakfast for us. Ani was a little damp when she slipped on her robe and it clung to her breasts and showed her nipples. She handed me the end of her golden chain and I was tempted to lead her directly back to bed. Food won out.

It was hard to get used to was having rice and soup at breakfast. Ani and I seated ourselves on the cushions and lifted the bowls to our lips. The slightly salty tang of the miso soup was amazingly revitalizing. In front of us were slices of a rolled omelet. In the U.S. we’d have filled it with cheese, ham, and God knows what else. The Tomagoyaki, as Ani told me it was called, did have a few flecks of mushrooms and herbs, but was simply layer after layer of egg rolled up and then sliced. And quite delicious.

I was reasonably facile with a pair of chopsticks, but elicited a few giggles from Ani as I attempted to capture a cube of tofu floating in my miso. Served with the delightful meal was Hourensou No Gamaae, a spinach salad with sesame dressing.

“I’m not used to eating such a huge breakfast,” I said. I sipped the rest of my miso. I missed my morning cup of coffee, but the hot liquid functioned both as a dish and a beverage. “I’ll need to go back to bed.”

“What a wonderful idea,” Ani laughed. “After this meal, you should have the energy for more time in bed.”

“Ani-san, how did I ever get so lucky as to meet you at the train station? I was so overwhelmed! And to think, I wasn’t even the person you were waiting for,” I said.

“That is not quite true,” Ani said. “You might not have been the person I was expecting, but you are exactly what I was waiting for.”

“What now?” I asked. “Should I cancel the rest of my trip and find a place to stay here? I don’t even know where you live.” Her head drooped down and her chin nearly touched her chest.

“You have to leave on Tuesday,” she whispered. “Don’t delay your adventure. You have looked forward to this all your life. And I… I have a client tomorrow morning that I will meet at Narita and take to his new employer. I will spend the week teaching him enough about Japanese customs to be able to function in his business. I will teach his wife how to shop, how her new kitchen works, and where her children will go to school. I will be their guide for the next month. By then, you will be in Europe and I will have another client waiting. This is our time, Master Wan Tu. Let us enjoy our time together.”

We moved from the table back to the bed, but my breakfast lay heavy in my stomach.

I took things much more slowly when we roused ourselves from our nap. I’d held her in my arms tenderly as we slept. I breathed deeply of the scent of jasmine in her hair. I cupped her breast in my hand. As she woke, she turned toward me and we kissed. Perhaps I imagined the sense of longing that we both exchanged.

When I entered her, I slid freely and uninhibited through her folds and she pushed down farther, making sure that I was fully buried in her as she gazed into my eyes. Her dark brown eyes connected to my pale blue. Such a study in contrasts. She wrapped her legs around my back and clung to me as I pulsed within her.

“I will carry this moment with me all my life,” I whispered to her.

She once again took me to the bath and carefully—almost ritually—bathed me. I had learned to accept her ministrations and she had allowed me to return them when we bathed in the morning. This time, though, when she had thoroughly dried me, she dressed me. I was amazed at how comfortable the clothes that Ito had provided for today were. Ani slid a pair of loose trousers up my legs and paused to kiss the head of my cock one more time. Even as desirable as I found her, I was spent at last and she tucked me into the trousers. Then she put a kimono over my arms and it felt delicious against my skin. She tied the belt behind my back. I caught my reflection in the mirror and thought I looked quite the Japanese gentleman. If Japanese gentlemen had light brown hair, blue eyes, and were six feet tall. She had me lift my feet as I balanced with a hand on her shoulder and she slipped Tabi socks on me that had a separation between the big toe and the rest of the sock. She made a comment about having gotten the largest pair Ito could find, but it was still a snug fit.

I was dressed and Ani stood before me in her naked glory.

“Now you must do one more thing, Master Wan Tu,” she said. I raised my eyebrow. “You must remove my collar. Our playtime is over.” She choked a little on the words and reached to wipe a tear from my eye as I unfastened the gold chain from around her neck. I let the chain collapse into her outstretched hand and she closed it in her fist. “Thank you, Aroslav-san. Now you must go walk in the garden while I get ready to serve tea.” She lifted her lips and kissed me lightly. I took one more look at her naked body and smiled at the little cat ears that still poked through her hair. Then I went to walk in the garden.

I HAD A LOT OF TIME to look out over Mount Fuji as I paused on the little footbridge across a goldfish pond. I lit a cigar to occupy my hands as I thought about what this meant for my grand adventure. My visit to Japan had been anything but what I expected. I was seriously considering canceling my flight and making Japan my permanent residence. Of course, that wasn’t practical. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t possible. But…

Ito-san fetched me from the garden and led me to the screened porch that overlooked the garden and the view of Fuji. I removed my sandals and she showed me the elegant tea service. Porcelain ware, lacquer trays and table, bamboo whisk, ivory chopsticks. It was beautiful.

“ANI-CHAN WILL PREPARE your tea according to tradition as your special host. Take your time and enjoy every element as she prepares it. Later, I will bring your food. It is your last night as a guest in my home and I am happy to provide this cha-kaiseki,” Ito-san said. “Rather than have you kneel through the entire meal, I have prepared a cushion with a back for you. Ani-san will arrive shortly and then you may be seated.”

I didn’t have to wait long. The screens to the interior of our room opened and a vision of loveliness came onto the dining porch. Ani was not a Geisha, nor did she make any attempt to look like one. She was, however, dressed in a beautiful dark amber silk kimono with gold trim. It was belted with an obi that tied in a complicated knot in the back, but not terribly wide. It accented her slim waist. Her hair was pulled up and back and dropped in a high ponytail. Something was missing. I had come to consider the little cat ears that she kept woven into her hair as a part of who she was. But now they were gone.

“Aroslav-san, I am honored to prepare tea for you. Will you be seated?” she asked formally.

“I am delighted Ani Mai-san. Thank you for your kind invitation.” I seated myself and watched in fascination as she performed the ritual. She precisely folded small towels and placing them either through her belt or into her sleeve, sweeping the long sleeves out of her way as she poured the water and whisked it into the ground tea, and bowing slightly as she ladled a cup and presented it to me with both hands. I held it as I waited for her to prepare her own and we looked at each other over the lip of the bowls as we took a sip.

I can’t tell you what the tea tasted like. Yes, it was green tea, the leaves ground to a powder, and I drank it all down over the course of the next several minutes. We said very little except with our eyes as we drank the tea. Then she cleared away the utensils, dipping them in hot water, drying them on a towel, and returning them to a lacquered box where they were stored. Over an hour had passed.

Almost as soon as Ani finished, Ito-san appeared with our rice and soup. She served courses of fish, vegetables, salad, tempura, and other delicacies, each on its own lacquer tray and enjoyed before the next was served. The atmosphere changed and we talked, laughed, and even sang catches of popular songs. Ito joined right in and suggested that the house would suddenly be silent when we left.

When the meal was finally finished, it was late afternoon. I reached for Ani’s hand, thinking we might go inside once more. She stood with me and then bowed slightly.

“I must leave now, Ari-chan. I have to get back to Tokyo and then to the airport early in the morning,” she whispered.

“I… I am very fond of you, Ani-chan. I want to say…” She put a finger to my lips.

“Me wa kuchi hodo ni mono o ii,” she said. “A folk saying: The eyes speak as much as the mouth. It means ‘love needs no words.’ Just remember, there is a huge game in the Midwest late next summer,” she said. “I am pretty sure a cat with a leash will show up. I do hope she can find a master or she will go feral.” I smiled. That was as close to a promise as I would ever get. I kissed her and she left through Ito’s house.

I WAS ON A TRAIN to Narita at midday a day later. I had a hotel booked for the night near the airport because my flight was at 7:00 a.m. Seven hours from there, I would arrive in Bangkok. Damn, Asia is huge!

I watched Fuji disappear behind the train as we wound along the coast. I just had a feeling I’d be seeing it again one day.

3
Wat Kanidoo

18 March 2016

I ARRIVED IN BANGKOK in time for lunch. Seven-hour flight, but five hours by the clock. I was exhausted because I’d stayed up all night writing. My entire time in Odawara had been spent without even looking at my computer. I was thankful it had enough charge to boot. Fortunately, Japan uses the same power connections as Europe and I had the right adapter, so the computer was charged, even if I wasn’t. I wrote all about Ani Mai and what I felt, then realized I was probably reading much more into our relationship than actually existed. I’d never expected my trip around the world to start with… a trip around the world.

BKK, the Bangkok International Airport, was teeming with activity. There were four floors that included arrival, departure, food and shopping, ground transportation, and if you got down far enough, the train downtown. I didn’t get that far. My first stop was at one of the dozen phone shops that lined the area outside baggage claim. I had exchanged $100 US for Thai baht at the Narita Airport. I felt rich with ٣,٥٠٠ baht. I always try to arrive in a country with some local currency. A phone SIM with 30 minutes of text and voice plus 500 megs of data cost me 500 baht. Then I looked around for the shuttle to my hotel, which arrived about ten minutes later.

The ‘resort’ was about five miles from the airport down a dirt road. A chicken ran across the road in front of the van and the driver laid on the horn. And out there in the middle of nowhere was a small paradise.

VISMAYA LUXURY RESORT, where I paid a whopping $35 a night, had a nice restaurant and a beautiful pool where table service was available. My room was a marble shrine with a glass-walled bath and a soaking tub that was nearly three feet deep. In spite of the fact that the temperature outside was in the nineties, the air conditioned room was almost too cold. I looked at the king-size bed and thought wistfully of my little tatami mat in Japan. It would be lovely to have Ani Mai to share this room with me. I could just imagine her in the bath, visible through the floor to ceiling windows as she bathed.

I stripped and put on my swimming trunks. That was pretty much what I wore for the next three days as I just lazed around the pool, diddled with a new story, and recovered from my jetlag. I didn’t try to accomplish anything, go anywhere, or even think. I just lay by the pool and slept.

I ATE MOST OF MY MEALS in the hotel restaurant. My first night I ordered soup and a salad. Each was about 250 baht. When the food arrived, it turned out to be two full meals. Even with the glass of wine I drank, the total only translated to about $15. I learned my lesson, though, and only ordered one dish from the menu at each meal after that.

By the weekend, I was ready for the next adventure and headed for the airport to fly south to the beaches. I headed for Krabi, and after a night in a cheap motel, caught a boat for Koh Po Po, an island in the Andaman Sea between Krabi and Phuket. I’d found a nice little bungalow there with really cheap rent. Paid in advance, it was about $15 a night. I followed a strong guy in just a pair of fisherman pants who carried my backpack over his head for me to the long tail boat anchored on the sand. I got my jeans soaked getting out to the boat, but it was a hundred degrees out and the jeans were dry before we reached the island forty minutes later. Of course, I got them soaked again getting up to the beach, but they’d dry.

MY BUNGAOW WAS SIMPLE. The room was about eight feet square. It had a single bed that was wide enough and comfortable enough that I could stretch out and get a good night’s sleep. There was enough space to walk through between the bed and a table with one chair. In the corner was an electric fan. Behind the room was what passed for a kitchen. It had a sink, mini-fridge, hotplate, and microwave. It also had an electric tea kettle so I could boil water and get my coffee made in the morning. Off the kitchen was a toilet and tub in an alley-like bathroom. It was wonderful.

I was surrounded by a well-landscaped jungle, blocking the other bungalows from direct view. We were assembled loosely around a full-size swimming pool. The fountain at the end was low enough that we could see the Andaman Sea as we lazed about in the pool or cabanas.

“We” consisted of fifteen other vacationers or vacationing couples. I would soon find that we came from all over the world and our lives intersected for a day, a week, or more in the Enchanted Jungle.

WHEN I WADED OUT to the long tail boat, I discovered something important. The Andaman Sea is warm. I’d started this trip in Hawaii and dangled my feet in the Pacific until they were ice cubes. That’s an ocean. When they say the South Pacific is warm, they mean in comparison to the North Pacific, up around Seattle. They don’t mean in comparison to your morning bathwater. The Andaman Sea around this tiny Thai island is warm like bathwater. Salty bathwater. But with the temperature of the air at a hundred degrees, ninety-degree water is quite refreshing.

The real pleasure of the seashore, though, is not the water, but the mostly-there bikinis. I found these come in two varieties. The first is the fashion bikini. I have nothing at all against these tiny patches of fabric tied together with dental floss. But these bikinis are usually brand new and displayed on the very expensive bodies of rich European tourists who are “doing Asia.” I say European because during my entire stay in Thailand, the only Americans I met were staff. Over half of the citizens of the US, after all, don’t even have a passport. In Europe, you don’t survive without a passport. Even in Asia, it seemed that everyone had a passport and had been in at least two other ‘foreign’ countries.

But that has nothing to do with the bikinis. The British, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Scandinavian, and Greek vacationers who came to see the temple and complain about the heat were, nonetheless, beautiful. And having considerably less body-shame than Americans, they did not hesitate to strut through the jungles or along the beaches in nothing but their bikinis and a pair of flip-flops. In some cases, there were bodies that could have used a little more fabric in their coverings. Like a tent. There was one guy who had to weigh 250, most of it in his gut, and had so much hair covering his back that I was looking for his trainer. His Speedo was so small and tight that it disappeared in the folds of fat and all you could really see that he was wearing were gold chains.

Back to bikinis. Have you ever noticed that breasts come in a great number of sizes and shapes? I know some guys who like tiny titties, some who like big boobs, and those like DualWriter who just love huge funbags. I know women who complain about the size of their breasts, the size of their nipples, the directions they point, their aching backs, and STOP STARING! The thing is that guys will watch breasts all day long, able to see the full curvature above and below, but all they want is to get a glimpse of the nipple. A little wardrobe malfunction, please.

BUT LET ME SUBMIT to you that the true pleasure of watching bikinis is the rear view. I could follow the subtle movements of a woman’s ass, even when fully clothed, for hours and never tire of it. But when said ass is covered only by a string at the waist and one that runs down the crack—I guess that means it’s actually not covered—well, that’s a sight that will fill my mind for hours. I’m not interested in seeing more, but in filling my hands with those soft treasures.

This was supposed to be about bikinis. Type two. There are a lot of people out there in the world who are traveling like me. They have a backpack with the essentials they will need for months of wandering from place to place around the globe. Every item in that pack is carefully considered, not just for how much space it takes up, but how much wear you can get out of it. I had planned for my excursion with four pairs of undershorts, eight pairs of socks, the lightweight drawstring trousers that I wore on planes, and a pair of jeans. I had a pair of shorts, a swimming suit I could wear as shorts if need be, two T-shirts and a lightweight cotton short sleeved shirt. I knew I’d add a few items to my wardrobe as I traveled because I wanted some local things, but mostly people who pack for a trip like this don’t add to their suitcases. They replace. Buy that cute T-shirt you saw in Bali and you have to throw away the one you bought in New Zealand. So, you just don’t buy extra stuff unless you really want to add to the weight of your pack.

Which brings me to bikinis. I mentioned that, didn’t I? Staying in a cheap beach bungalow like I was, I met a large number of young women who were backpacking around Asia. They were strong, fit, incredibly confident, adventurous women. Most were multi-lingual and several of those I met on the island were just taking a break on the beach before they headed to an eco-farm, a nanny job, a monastery, or wherever they could get a job to earn food and lodging and a little money to continue their journey. These young women didn’t buy impractical bikinis. They needed something that would endure a game of beach volleyball, a swim in salt water, a three-mile hike to an incredible waterfall they heard about, and, in a pinch, could substitute for underwear for two days. This swimwear was a little more substantial than the butt floss worn by the elite. It wasn’t designed to expose so much flesh to the rays of the sun and eyes of the men.

But… Clothes that are worn a lot tend to lose their shape a little. Fabric stretches. Bodies shrink—or expand. Elastic starts to give way. And the result includes a lot more of those longed-for wardrobe malfunctions.

Char had a suit like that.

CHAR WAS ETHNICALLY Persian, but second-generation English living in London. She was well-educated and I could listen to her talk all day long. I know different accents ‘do it’ for different guys. I knew a guy from Indiana years ago who married his Georgia-born wife because he couldn’t get enough of her gentle southern accent. Different things for different people. For me it’s a cultured British accent that does it.

A dark and mysterious beauty, you could imagine Char walking into your tent in the desert covered in translucent veils, shimmying to the music of her finger-cymbals while the layers dropped away one at a time. Just watching her butt sway as she walked to or from the pool was fuel for fantasies from the first day that I met her.

Char had backpacker’s butt. That’s not a bad thing. I learned back in high school, when I was camping and climbing in the Rockies, that if you carry a heavy pack, you either spend all your time bent forward looking at the ground in front of you, or you learn to rest your pack on your hips so you can stand upright. Resting your pack that way tends to make you thrust your butt out in one direction and your chest in the other. It gives you a little ledge back there to rest the pack on. Nowadays, the packs have wide belts to actually help distribute the weight around your waist without having it all on your shoulders. When I started packing, it was all up to how you carried the weight and positioned your body.

Well, Char had been packing for five months already and planned to continue for another seven before she returned to London. Even when she wasn’t carrying her pack, her butt was thrust out slightly behind her and she walked erect as though straps were pulling her shoulders back, delicious full breasts on prominent display in front.

Char’s swimsuit was not particularly sexy. I don’t know if it was inspired by modesty, durability, or utility, but she wore a one-piece that had a little ruffle at the waist. It tied behind her neck with two panels that draped over her breasts and left a long line of cleavage exposed in front. In back, from the tie at her neck to the low waist of the bottom, she was bare. But what intrigued me most was that the suit was well-worn.

It wasn’t ratty or worn thin like that, but it had lost a lot of its elasticity. As a result, the fabric over her breasts tended to shift around a lot.

I’d gone out to the pool for a dip and decided to have a drink and a smoke in the cabana. It was mid-afternoon and the other residents would be stirring from their naps or returning from their hikes before long. After my dip, I left my towel and hat in the cabana and went to my bungalow to retrieve a few necessities: laptop, bag of peanuts, bottle of Hong Thong, case of cigars, glass of ice.

When I returned to the cabana, I saw another towel and hat beside mine. Glancing at the pool, I saw Char floating on her back, breasts emerging from the water as if to point the way to heaven.

“God! The water feels good this afternoon!” she said. Apparently, she’d noticed me staring at her.

“I was in a few minutes ago,” I acknowledged.

“And that was enough? Steve said it was 110 today.”

I set my things down on the table in the cabana and dove into the pool, surfacing not far from her.

“I love the fact that they use saline treatment for the pool here instead of chlorine. It doesn’t stink like pools back in the US,” I said.

“It’s like that all over Asia,” Char answered. “And the water in the pool is cooler than the water in the ocean.” Evidence of that was poking at the cups of her suit. I wondered if it was lined at all.

“The problem is that with my pale skin, I’ll be burnt to a crisp if I stay out in the sun too long. And I hate sunblock. I always feel like I’m leaving an oil slick behind me when I swim,” I laughed.

“Yeah. I suppose I should get into the shade, too.” We swam to the edge of the pool and as she twisted around to hoist herself out, the left panel of her suit shifted enough to fully expose her breast. Her areola was close to two inches across and a thick erect nipple jutted out from the center, both a darker brown than her skin. She didn’t seem to notice and when she stood, the fabric slid back to cover her again. “Hong Thong? Can I have a hit?”

“Sure. Let me go get another glass and ice.”

“Mine’s closer. I’ll be right back.” I watched her walk away, her round buns jiggling under the loose fabric of her suit. Damn! I poured myself a hefty shot of the Thai bourbon and extracted a cigar from my case. Char sniffed the air as she returned with her glass of ice. “Mmm. Nice cigar. Not to beg a drink and a smoke, but would you share?” Instead of pulling out another cigar, I simply handed her my lit one. She took a long drag and handed it back to me. We shared our drinks and the cigar in companionable quiet.

“How long are you here on Koh Po Po?” I asked. I’d seen her when she arrived the day after I did.

“Five more days.”

“I like staying put for a few days or even weeks between moves,” I said.

“Yeah. It’s like a vacation.”

“Where to next?”

“I met some packers who told me about a monastery in Laos. I checked it out online and they invited me to come and cook for them for a couple of weeks. It’s a nice gig. The monks are quiet and the work isn’t that difficult. I’ll get to do a little exploring and mostly just soak up the countryside between meals. Guests are housed in a dormitory. They give you a few bucks when you leave after two weeks.”

“I was thinking I’d go to Viet Nam, but I don’t want to walk across Cambodia to get there,” I said.

“You’ve got that right. Thieves. I felt sorry for them until they took the last of my money. I couldn’t report them to the police because I didn’t have any money to pay off the police. I got a ride from a guy on a motorcycle who got me into Ho Chi Minh City. I worked in a restaurant for a few weeks before I could catch a boat across the Gulf to here.”

“I think I’d feel too vulnerable without my credit card and a cash card. I carry all the work I want to do with me,” I said, tapping the computer.

“A real digital nomad,” she laughed. “I have a credit card and can get cash if I need it, but the idea is not to if you can help it, you know. The people on the beach who are staying up at the resort—they live on their credit cards. They never get to know anyone.” We shared another puff of the cigar and I tossed the stub into the ashtray.

WHEN WE MET at the pool the second day, I considered it a regular event. We swam, smoked, drank, and talked. She wanted to know what I was writing and I told her that I had a couple stories I was working on. One was a mystery and I’d decided to set part of it in Thailand. The other was a do-over called Not This Time that would feature a woman instead of a man. Char was very interested in that and in all my erotic writings. She swung one foot up on the seat between us so she could turn to face me. In so doing, the crotch of her suit pulled aside and I could see a very full bush surrounding pink lips. She seemed oblivious to the fact that she was exposing herself.

Her immediate response to the situation in my story was “abort it.” But then we talked about the influence of the former life on the present one. We also talked about the exploration of being bi, the difference between love and lust, and developing a polyamorous relationship—all of which she seemed to have experienced. While we were talking, some of the others started showing up for a dip in the pool and joined us in the cabana out of the sun. Food started showing up. One of the guys—who was a photographer and said he was doing a documentary on Thailand’s endeavor to get away from sex tourism to more legitimate tourist activities—collected money from all of us and went out to get food. I wanted more than Khao Soi, but was happy to have that when he got back as well as the various noodle dishes and fried vegetables.

I was surprised when Char brought up my writing.

“Ari is here doing primary research for an erotic novel,” she announced. I’d only said I was writing a novel. “Anyone who would like her crotch sniffed to help with his research should line up.”

“I love erotic,” Gretchen said. I couldn’t pronounce the name of the town she was from, but it was someplace south of Berlin. “Lots of sex!”

“I write mysteries and thrillers, too,” I said.

“I want to be in your novel!” Elsa chimed in. What a Swedish beauty. Thin, stacked, and nearly six feet tall, her blonde hair was almost white.

“Mmm, who would you like to be?” I asked. I was pretty used to this. It’s the next narcissistic thing to taking selfies on your cell phone. Meet an author and get him to put you in his novel. I’d been doing this for so long that I knew that even though I would follow through and write a character for her, she’d never read the book. People forget. You meet them and promise to write the character, but the book doesn’t come out for three years. By that time, they don’t even remember meeting you.

“I want to be the dead body!” she exclaimed.

“Well, that would be interesting. I’ll have to come up with some way of killing you now. Not exactly what I contemplated doing to you,” I said. She blushed and the others at the table laughed. Suggestions started immediately. “Knife.” “Poison.” “Drowning.” “Throw her off a cliff.”

“You guys are terrible!” Elsa laughed. “I had no idea how many of you wanted to kill me.”

“Only because you are beautiful,” Char said. “No one wants to kill the homely ones.” She pointed at herself and I shushed her. She smiled at me and glanced down. Her suit was gapping open enough for me to see her right breast. She straightened and the gap closed.

“I know,” I said, trying not to be distracted from the conversation. After all, they were talking about my novel. “I could use your picture on the cover. The beautiful naked body floating in the pool.”

“As if I would get naked for you to take my picture,” she sniffed.

“What are the odds?” Nils asked. Nils and Helene were an odd couple from The Netherlands. He was in his mid to late forties, pale white with sandy hair. She was in her mid-twenties, dark as night, and still spoke with a Jamaican accent, even when she was speaking Dutch. I’d been introduced to the game of ‘odds’ the day before. If something comes up, and you say you’d never do it or there wasn’t a chance, you’d be challenged to give the odds against you doing it. “What are the odds that you’d strip right here and now and dive in the pool so Ari can take your picture for the cover of his book?” Nils persisted.

“One in twenty,” Elsa responded. “If I had enough to drink.” That was pretty long odds. The objective now was that someone would count to three and on three Elsa and I both had to shout out a number between one and twenty. If we matched, she had to take the dare.

“One. Two. Three,” Helene called out.

“Six!” I said. Everyone started laughing and Elsa blushed. I hadn’t even heard her shout out the same thing. She held out her glass for another shot of Hong Thong and downed it in one swallow. Then she stood and started stripping. I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures while I was still in motion and heading for the pool. The shape of that ass as she bent forward to dive into the pool was digitally recorded. Everyone was applauding. She stood in the water, tits like beacons in the dusk as I snapped photos. Then she slowly stretched out on the water, face down and ass up, and floated as I took more photos. She stood again and glared at everyone in our little cabana as she stepped up out of the pool dripping water from her hair, the tips of her breasts, and her clean-shaved pussy. I’m sure there was water elsewhere, too, but who noticed? I tossed her my towel. She dried and pulled her shorts and T-shirt back on, leaving her bra and panties on her chair. She wrapped my towel around her hair and in stretching we all saw she hadn’t done that great a job drying her breasts before she put the T-shirt on. I climbed back into my seat and Char nudged me, giggling.

That was a preview of Border Crossings. To read the rest purchase the book.

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