part 13
Subject: Happy NEW YEAR!!!
To: Mack Attack
From: bopeep
Date: 01/03 11:19p.m.
Mack,
Sorry I couldn’t get back for New Year’s Eve. I hope you got my message. It sucked. I haven’t had a chance to call since I’ve been back (only got back last night, and had to sleep, then work tonight. Uggh.
I’ve called a few times, but just get your answering machine. Hope things are okay. You’re not depressed or anything or anything, are you? Can’t wait to see you. I want to snuggle up and celebrate a whole new year. I thought about you all the time, the whole time I was gone. I made a really important decision while I was away from you, darling, and I want to share it with you — in person.
Let’s do dinner!
Your, one and only, Aimee
Subject: East meets West
To: BoPeep
From: MackAttack
Date: 01/05 4:19 a.m.
Aimee,
Have you ever seen the art of Asian bondage? On New Years Eve, Akiko knocked on my door. She’s from Japan and doesn’t speak much English (hardly any), but she heard me playing the piano and wanted to meet me. She lives downstairs. I must have looked surprised and confused, not really knowing what she wanted, because she suddenly whispered many things as apology and fled.
I followed her down to her apartment to tell her there were no hard feelings, and she was very relieved and happy. We can’t communicate very well without a translator, but we do have music and imagery. It turns out that she loves Western classical music, and she brought me over to her computer to show me her collection of bondage art. I won’t call it smut anymore. There must be gradations in the spectrum.
I witnessed real intelligent imagination in posing the classic nude. This is not just a Western thing. It is different and yet it is still “the nude.”
Of course, I barely know her, but Akiko is so different than other women I’ve known. She is so nice and polite and concerned about offending me. Can you believe it? A woman concerned about offending a man? She keeps trying to tell me something about Yolanda, her American cousin, and makes it all her fault that I can’t understand. Shit, I speak English with you and others and when I just don’t “get it,” it’s always my fault. She calls her cousin “Yoshi,” and I guess it’s because she has a hard time with “Yolanda.” I am “Mack-san” but comes across “Mock-san.”
We went back up to my apartment to listen to Yo Yo Ma play The Unaccompanied Cello Suites . She loves classical music. She says, “Western masters,” with such awe and reverence, it’s as if she’s talking about the gods, and I agree with her. It was something I always wanted to share with you. But music was “my religion” and you had yours, and everything has equal validity, yeah, right. I felt so confident, strong and inspired, I danced with her in my apartment to the suites. She came into my arms with uncertainty, but then melted and followed my every move like a silk gown whooshing around my feet.
Then I took her out for cheeseburgers and milkshakes at Pippo’s. What do you think about that? Akiko was giddy. I ordered half-pounders for both of us, and she really couldn’t eat it all but forced herself, then went to the bathroom and puked and came back. But is that politeness or what? She was apologetic for puking and confessed it to me. I can’t believe any other girl in the universe would do that for me. But then, all I have known are American girls, aren’t they, Aimee?
Back at the apartment house, I felt I was in total control and could do anything I wanted. I felt like a Western master. That’s the art. So I took her hands in mine outside her door and began to think. The perfect grace note for this evening was not doing her now, and to not even worry about doing her. But I didn’t want to mystify her, either. And as I wondered, she whispered,”Tie me up now, Mock-san? Binder me?”
Then I knew, and said, “No. Not tonight, Akiko. But soon, very soon, we shall blend our arts together. And East shall surely meet West.”
Oh, God, I turned and walked away from this perfection on a cloud! I left her in the chthonic realm of the basement (it has that significance) and ascended to my sacred place above her. And that’s where I am right now as I write to you, knowing she is down there at her ablutions mothering the inspiration in the womb of her artistic soul. I really want to send her off to her dreams by playing Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1, but I’m tired of that big dominatrix bitch across the hall being snide about my music. So I’ll just go turn in now and traffick in mercantiles tomorrow.
Until next time, I feel love for everyone, and holiness, and sanctity .
Mack
Subject: are you on drugs?
To: MackAttack
From: BoPeep
Date: 01/05 9:39 a.m.
Dear Mack,
Is all that a joke? Are you getting back at me for not being with YOU on New Year’s Eve? Are you blaming ME that the roads were closed, and I couldn’t get away? Are you playing a game with me? WTF?!! What are you possibly talking about? Some chink/gook (what is the rude racial slang for Japanese, anyway?) walks into your life and you just dance off with her into the dark. She’s so wonderful, she’s so great? You are tying her up? Is this like the time you shaved your body, bleached out your hair and started calling yourself a sun god? What in the hell is going on with you?
So, all I really needed to do was tie you up and not talk English, why didn’t you TELL ME? How can you do this?
I am assuming this is another one of your weird moods?
Call me! Please? Now?
Aimee.
Aimee Is A Little Crazy 