He leaned forward and poked her in the nose with his finger. “You won’t make love to me because you think all Asian men have a small dinky.” Jayne’s eyes got wide, as she prayed that he would not stand up and try to show her his dinky, or anything else.
“It’s not true. Not all Asian men are cursed with a small dinky.” He sat there staring into the bathroom door, with his head cocked like the RCA dog, then he squinted his eyes. “Well, not completely untrue.” He broke into laughter. “I walked in the bathroom on Phở one time and that man is truly cursed.” He laughed harder, holding up his pinky finger. “But don’t tell him I told you his secret. He has a minky, inky, pinky dinky! It don’t even hang.”
He laughed again, leaning back onto the rear of the futon. His face suddenly turned serious. Jayne was trying to figure out what would be said the morning after all of this nonsense. “Jayne, I have a nice dinky.”
That was her cue to lock him in this room and leave. He tried to caress her lips with his fingers, but only ended up poking her in the chin with his index finger.
“I know how to use it too!” He scrunched up his face as if he were telling her a family secret recipe. “My dinky is not small.” He crinkled his nose while processing another thought. “Well it would appear to be small if you put it next to a big black dude’s, but I am perfectly proportioned!” He pointed both index fingers at her as if shooting mock pistols. He then jumped up off the futon, with the towel hitting the floor. “Would you like to see what’s behind door number two Jayne?”
She turned her head while yelling at him. “No, Toshi! Put the towel back on!” He ignored her words and walked around her to the hallway to get his wet coat. The black silk briefs he wore left little to the imagination, as he returned with a small grey box in his hands. He nearly missed the futon as he sat back down. Jayne quickly placed the towel over his lap to cover his lower half.
“I am opening my heart to you Jayne.” He handed her the Kay’s box. She opened it to find a necklace with two open hearts in a Yin and Yang shape.
“I realize you were the Yin to my Yang,” he mumbled as he laid back on the futon. “I want it all Jayne and I want it with you.” And with that said, Toshi had passed out.
She stared at the diamond encrusted necklace feeling her heart open as well. Her spirit was now open to a drunken Japanese man, who had fallen asleep on her futon, wearing nothing more than a pair of drawers. What would her Grammy say if she saw this?
Chapter 18
Jayne woke to the smell of sizzling bacon, the sound of coffee perking, and a very confused Japanese man standing over her stove.
“Good morning,” he said as her poured her a cup of coffee. “I hope you slept well.”
“I did, thank you.”
Toshi added scrambled eggs along with the bacon slices and a toasted English muffin to a plate and sat it on the table for Jayne. He poured two glasses of orange juice and joined her for breakfast. After blessing the food he opened the conversation feeling foolish for waking up in his underwear in her apartment. “Would you like to discuss last night?”
“No,” she said as she sipped at her coffee.
It had not escaped his attention that she was not mad, nor was she throwing him out the door. Around her neck she wore his gift. A bevvy of mixed emotions flooded his chest. One began with the excitement of seeing her wearing his present, but secondly, he felt disheartened that he had not personally placed it about her neck. Wait! She’s wearing it! She didn’t get engaged to that other man?
Jayne’s hand went to the necklace, allowing her fingers to run absently over the hearts. “Last night was my first and last date with him. He was attempting to run a game on me and I outplayed his hand.” She slid her hand into the pocket of her robe and removed a green box. Toshi opened it to find inside a silver link bracelet which connected with black and yellow koi fishes in a Yin and Yang pattern. Jayne secured it about his wrist.
“I had bought this for you earlier, but I am confused about what that whole drunken display was last night, Toshi,” she said as she watched his face take in the surprise of her gift.
Toshi’s chest tightened as if it were swelling with something he didn’t fully understand. “My feelings for you are running deeper than I had initially realized and it scared me a bit.”
Jayne still said nothing as she ate her breakfast. He was feeling vulnerable and she knew it, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook for using booze to get his courage up to come and talk to her about what he was feeling. A real man doesn’t do that. “Did you think that loading up on liquid courage was what you needed to come and talk to me?”
Toshi shook his head. “I have made no qualms about my feelings for you. I made those clear the first, second, third, and fourth times I ran into you. However…” he said as he sipped at his tea. “Since spending some real time with you these past months, I have learned to also appreciate the woman. Thereby, altering how I feel about you.”
It wasn’t working for Jayne. A man who needs to get drunk to deal with his feelings was one she did not need in her life or in her bed. The problem she was facing, was the simple truth that she liked him. She liked him a lot. “Getting drunk and charging over here like a drunken bull in a china shop was the solution for you to deal with your feelings?”
Toshi was shaking his head no. “I was coming over here to fight for you.”
Jayne’s jaw dropped, then she remembered. “Oh yeah. You were going to kick him in the dick.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
Jayne pursed her lips as if to demonstrate how far over this whole thing she was. “Yes, Dr. Yamaguchi. You screamed loud enough for everyone in the building to hear it. He can’t make love to you with a broke dick, Jayne!”
Neither of them could help, but burst into laughter; the whole thing was so silly. She couldn’t find it in herself to be mad at him, plus he had come to fight for her. Jayne thought that was simply archaic, Neanderthal-ish, and totally romantic.
“I have dreamed about creating this comic book for so long and seeing it come to life is rather scary. I meet you and it feels like everything I ever wanted is approaching fruition all at once. Then I get a phone call telling me you are in a restaurant on Valentine’s Day with some dude, saying that you would marry him. I had to deal with my first experience of jealously, as well as the possibility of someone coming along and sweeping you off your feet and taking you from me, before I’ve even had a real chance to woo and win your heart. Jayne, I want to be your man.”
Jayne listened to what he was saying. Inside, she had butterflies flitting all over at his words. He wanted to woo and win her? It was dreamy. She liked it more than she could ever admit, but she could not let him off the hook that easy for his behavior. “Jayne, say something. Call me stupid. Say I’m immature, selfish, a prick…something. Just talk to me.”
“Toshi, we are business partners. If you and I are never anything else to each other, we are partners on this comic book. The rest we will have to sort out.”
He swallowed hard. “I understand.”
“Also understand that if you ever show up on my doorstep drunk again, I am going to personally call the police on you.”
“I understand,” he said again. “Are you going to hold it over my head?”
“Are you going to try and show me your dinky again?”
He scratched the side of his neck, then his shoulder, and she saw his cheeks turn red. “I did not say that!”
She nodded her head slowly. He lowered his head in shame. Jayne could not help but give him a good swift kick while he was down. “You assured me that it was a very nice dinky and you knew how to use it.”
It was uncertain if he was cursing himself, or cursing at her, but he lapsed into Japanese as he paced the floor in her dining room. He cleared the table, washed the dishes, and put on his coat, still talking out loud in his familial language. Jayne watched in amusement with a smirk on her face. Finally, when he had calmed down,
he faced her with his head lowered. “I am sorry for dishonoring you with such talk and behavior. I understand if you never want to see me again. I am truly sorry for showing you such disrespect.”
Jane grabbed him by the front of his still wet jacket. “I have to see you again, Toshi.”
He raised his head to look her in the eyes. “Why is that?”
“You told me that you were working on being a better man. Based on I what I did see, I agree with you. It looks like a rather nice dinky. I look forward to getting to know it and you a lot better.” A small smile returned to his face as she kissed him before sending him on his way.
Chapter 19
March rolled in quietly as Jayne and Toshi completed the designs of the main Vigilante characters for the comic book. Everything was shaping up nicely and both were pleased with the progress. Although they were spending a great deal of time together, neither had pushed the romantic envelope. Jayne was frustrated with the way some of her projects were developing at work and Grammy was pushing her harder to arrange a meeting with Toshi. Frank was also farting more than she could stand.
Toshi swore he was working on his filtering system and often would slip, saying things that he had no business addressing or being entirely too honest at the wrong time. One of these moments happened after the development of the first set of costumes. Jayne was proud of the stitching of the outer legs of the pants for her costume as well as the mesh inlays of the bustier.
“You need to work out some more so those pants will fit right,” he told her as he looked up from his desk. Jayne gulped hard to swallow down any personal feelings. He even came to the gym with her one Wednesday afternoon and took out a great deal of aggression on her. Jayne held her tongue.
Her lips only tightened when he spouted off a gem of encouragement by telling her, “You are not working hard enough, Jayne. If you want definition in those abs, you need to sweat and increase your heart rate to burn of some of that fat.” What fat? You tyrannical monster!
She knew he was frustrated and so was she. They were spending at least three nights a week together sharing nothing more than a few kisses. In the past week, Toshi had withdrawn from even a modicum of affection with her. It was all she had to keep her going and now work was trying to literally suffocate her. Frank’s farting was becoming about as unbearable as Toshi’s clogged up filters.
It was wrong. Jayne knew it was wrong, but one evening after Toshi had been particularly hard on her, in a week where Frank seemed to intentionally make her miserable, she decided to kill two birds with one stone.
“I will have the new layout ready for you tomorrow, Toshi. Can you swing by my office to pick it up?”
It wasn’t difficult to understand the man was sexually frustrated. Jayne thought that maybe a change of pace from working was also in order. “If you have some free time, maybe we can grab some lunch.” She was hoping to shift the tension between them.
“Sure,” he mumbled. “Thursdays are my short days. I am out of class by 11:50. I could swing by your office at 12:30?” He said it in the form of a question and Jayne was almost giddy in anticipation.
Of the many traits that made Toshi Yamaguchi very likeable in Jayne’s book, he was a man of his word and always on time. He arrived at Cawley and Associates at 12:30 on the dot, which happened to coincide with the after effects of Frank’s lunch. Rebecca the office manager, directed him to Jayne’s desk. She rose to watch his approach down the corridor of cubicles and stood waiting for it.
He hit the invisible wall of Frank’s funk and began to twitch as if he had stepped on an electric Taser. His face contorted, while his hands began swinging at an invisible enemy he could smell but not see. He launched into a rant that sounded like the announcer on one of those Japanese games shows. It started with, “Aoohhhh!” Jayne could hear the snickers from the other pod dwellers who also suffered daily from Frank’s malevolent malodorousness.
“What is that awful stench?” Toshi asked as he backed up, refusing to come down the row any further.
Jayne waved to him over the top of her cubicle. “I’m back here Dr. Yamaguchi.”
“You can stay back there! I am not coming any closer!” He simply stayed put.
Jayne wasn’t going to let it go. “I have some new designs on my computer I need you to see.”
“You can email them to me,” he told her as he started walking toward the front door.
The snickers from the pod people had turned into giggles, but she needed him to get in some one on one with Frank. It took some coaxing, but finally, she got him to travel down the aisle. The giggles had turned to laughter as each cubicle Toshi passed, he poked his head in to sniff, to try to locate the source of the stench. Heads began to pop up over the work stations like Meerkats on the lookout on the desert plains, waiting for Toshi to locate the violator.
As he walked, he sniffed. He took a step, then sniffed. He was only two pods away when Gladys stuffed her scarf in her mouth to dampen her laughter. One cubicle away. The boss had left his office as well to see what was going to happen. Jayne looked down the rows to see whose head was not visible. As soon as Kris Cawley, the VP of Operations came from his office, Tunisia’s head was among the onlookers. Leave it to the office busybody to be busy stirring the pot. She had called Kris to come and watch.
Toshi rounded the corner and sniffed the air then came face to face with Frank the Farter. Not only were his filters off, so were the gloves. “Man! What is wrong with you?”
Frank’s face had turned red. “Excuse me? Who are you?”
Jayne knew there was no stopping him, but she added some credibility to what he was about to unleash on Frank. “Dr. Yamaguchi, my workstation is over here.” This statement he ignored.
He began in Japanese, shaking his finger at Frank, who outweighed Toshi by at least 100 pounds. For some dumb reason, Frank thought it a good idea to stand up to his full height of six feet, hoping to intimidate Toshi who was truly angry. “Sit down you disgusting excuse for a man! How dare you subject your coworkers to such toxic levels of methane! Why? Because you are too lazy to go and have your prostate checked and eat some vegetables?”
Frank mumbled something, which caused Toshi to lapse into Japanese again, reverting to English, back to Japanese then again to English. “You should be ashamed!” It came out like the master sensei in a bad karate movie where he is explaining to the student why fighting for money is wrong.
“You are going to change your diet, eat leafy green vegetables, reduce your carbs, and make a doctor’s appointment to have yourself checked!”
Frank was still trying to say something. “Shut up! You listen! You call this man!” He took a personal business card from his wallet and scribbled a number on the back of it, then changed his mind. “No, you go! You go now! See him! Tell him I sent you!”
Frank was almost in tears. “I can’t just leave work like that.”
Toshi turned to look at all the heads who were staring at him. “Who is this man’s boss?”
Kris reluctantly raised his hand. Toshi asked, “do you grant this man permission to leave work early for this appointment that I am setting for him right now?”
Kris nodded. Toshi took out his cell phone and called someone. He spoke to them in his language. He turned back to a red-faced Frank. “He is expecting you. He is on the corner of Davis and Washington road in a white building.”
Frank rose slowly and gathered his things, but Toshi stopped him. “You are going to feel much better. Monday will be a better day for everyone in your life.”
Frank exited the main doors of the building and cans of air freshener were being sprayed while others clapped and cheered for Toshi. A few people patted him on the back as he looked at Jayne with his arms folded across his chest. He knew she had done this on purpose and he was madder than a wet cat.
Kris Cawley was speeding down the row headed in their direction. She wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but everyone in the office was tuned in to the sce
ne. Jayne moved closer to Toshi who had planted his feet, ready for whatever Kris was about to bring.
Kris approached them both. “Jayne. Who is this?” He and everyone in the office wanted to know who this man was that said what they all wanted to, but could not say to Frank. Toshi had given them new hope and for Jayne, he had given her something else. Clarity.
Her fingers laced into his. ‘This is Dr. Toshi Yamaguchi,” she told her boss. “He is my boyfriend.”
Chapter 20
The words uttered in her office to her coworkers, which also defined her relationship with Toshi, was all he needed. He had started to smile again and as she expected, he changed tactics on her once again. The romantic Toshi was unleashed upon an unsuspecting Jayne who, by all accounts, was eating up every minute of his new approach.
He stopped by on Monday morning, on his way to work, with a single stemmed perfect daisy, just to help her start her week out right. He gave her a warm kiss, massaging her neck with his thumbs, then backed away. Jayne was agitated all day. Tuesday, he sent her a selfie of his smile and goatee with the caption, “it happens every time I think of you.” He was getting smoother.
After their work out on Wednesday evening, Jayne had a tight muscle in her calf, which he readily volunteered to massage out. He used his vast knowledge of the body’s muscular system to explain as he worked. “In order to force the gastrocnemius to relax, I must start higher at the abductor magnus,” he said as his hand slipped between her inner thighs. His fingers probing deep into her flesh, coming way too close to the proximity of her pocketbook. Toshi pushed at her thigh spreading her legs a little further apart, while magical fingers kneaded the back of her thigh.
“Now,” he said as one hand worked on her lower calf. His face so inappropriately close to her butt cheek she felt the warmth of his breath. “I will manipulate the bicep femoris and stimulate the semintendinosus, as I stroke the hamstring.” Jayne’s eyes closed as she tried to steady her breathing. He was standing upright behind her with waves of heat radiating from his body. She still leaned forward on the workout bench with her butt pointing toward him.
The Cost To Play (Slivers of Love) Page 10
