Red Summer
Posted on May 14th, 2021 by D'bryn Zoë

epoca
Golden-gai
Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
March 22, 2396

The first time D’bryn Zoë fell in love with someone she was clinking glasses of umeshu in a cramped bar in the heart of Shinjuku, her head already swimming from shots of Hibiki and a canned hi-ball from the corner market, her belly full to capacity with takoyaki and tsukemen, her legs sore from exploring the city, her back clammy from humidity.

Neil Garrison held eye-contact as they took their first sip of the plum wine. Maybe it was the booze but in that moment Zoë felt a new gravity in his gold-brown eyes, and a false sense of falling (no, floating) toward them. He thanked her for coming with him on this excursion, said he was glad she was here, said she was the one person on this trip he didn’t want to do it without.

There were six of them that night: Zoë herself (though these were the days when she went by Sauë), Neil, Jake Kurath, Brad Majxner, Courtney Langston, and Anistyn Hornley. These guys had all known each other since kindergarten out in some smallish town in central Colorado, and they all hit Academy at the same time. They did everything together: studied, trained, played, vacationed. Zoë had never felt such crushing imposter syndrome, joining a group of near-lifelong friends at so late a date—but their affection for her felt genuine.

Especially Neil’s.

They met in Warp Theory 201, and it took less than two weeks of collaborative study time for Zoë to pick up Neil’s crush signals. He was far from the first person to broadcast such signals to Zoë, but he was among the very few whose signals were not disruptive. Foremost he presented as rather shy and reserved: a far throw from people who flapped their most colorful plumage, squawked, danced circles around you. At times it seemed as if his admiration of her was a perpetual motion machine, in no need of reciprocation.

Then, at Week #3, Zoë mentioned her asexuality. She often scoffed at what she called tactical conversation: the sforzando under words like girlfriend, boyfriend, or partner, when dropped in front someone who won’t take a hint. Her mention was truly offhand, and in response to Anistyn’s lubricious assessment of a male classmate’s backside. Once her asexuality was known to her friends Zoë thought Neil would be like the other finite folks who came a’knockin: the crush would decline, and he would either continue to be a platonic friend or he wouldn’t.

Yet his affection for her persisted, perhaps even intensified—to the point where she asked Courtney about him in confidence a couple nights before this Japan trip.

‘Okay, is… Well, first I have to ask if you happen to know if, um…if Neil…’

‘Is into you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He is.’

‘And he knows I’m ace?’

‘Pretty sure he does.’

‘Okay, is…is he…? Is he also ace?’

Courtney took a moment to flip through her brain-files. ‘I don’t think so. I mean, I’m not sure. I don’t even have secondhand evidence, but I seem to remember his ex saying something that would imply they had sex. Haven’t really talked with him about his intimate details, really.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to. I was just wondering.’

‘If you want my advice, Sauë, just talk to him about it. I may not know anything about what it’s like to date the guy, but I do know he’s an open book.’

Zoë and Neil were the only two who didn’t proceed to get shit-hammered and ping-pong down the squeezed alleys of Golden-gai. Courtney, as was her custom, tapped out first and went back to their rental to sleep, while Anistyn and Jake had to rescue Majxner from the angry owners of the locals-only bars, hurling many a, ‘Sumimasen!’ for the boy’s chaos energy. Once they got him to bed, Anistyn and Jake fucked off to some other corner of debauchery, leaving Zoë and Neil on a street corner bathed in garish white light.

Neil said, ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m still on California time.’

‘Yeah, same.’

‘What do you wanna do?’

Zoë scanned up and down the avenue, which by its dark patches and lack of foot traffic marked the border of Party Central. One of the few lit fronts was that of a ramen spot, one that wasn’t packed to the gills. She said, ‘I actually could put away a bowl of noodles.’

‘Me too. Not horribly hungry, but I could probably use something solid.’

They spent the next hour in one of the most easy-going, free-flowing conversations Zoë could recall at the time. Neil of course was kind and thoughtful, but also possessed a soft-spoken passion for both his Starfleet aptitudes and his dream of one day becoming a holo-filmmaker.

He said, ‘There’s a lot of magic in the interactive nature of storytelling found in holonovels and narrative games and stuff. I have just as much fun as the next guy lopping off orc-heads with Legolas and Gimli, or getting in a dogfight against the Ražirox with the 22nd Armada, but—’

‘Wa-wa-wait, I know the first one, but what’s the second one?’

‘Oh, that’s from Lions of Arcturus. Graphic novel series.’

‘Gotcha. I’m unfamiliar. But go on.’

‘If you’re into graphic novels and epic space fantasy, give it a go for sure. Anyway, interactive versus non-interactive media. So, I dunno about your parents, but mine were very much the product of their generation: all that stodgy traditionalist revival of old-world classical music and literature, as if nothing came out after 1967. The benefit of that is that I was subjected to almost entirely non-interactive media, and there’s something to be said about the natural gulf between a piece of media and the audience. I think the transportive potential of a non-interactive story is deeply undervalued in our modern age.

‘But I’m rambling. What about you? What gets you rambling?’

Cue: Zoë’s rambling sesh about music, songwriting, poetry, and literature.

They emptied their ramen bowls and rolled into the small hours before sunrise, turning south for an untroubled constitutional. Before long they came to the northwest corner of Shinjuku Gyoen, and since it was too early to be admitted inside they wandered its perimeter. Morning came, and they slipped into a café for matcha and pastries, where they were soon joined by a bleary-eyed Courtney.

Powered by vending-machine energy drinks and as much caffeine as either of their bodies could handle, Zoë and Neil powered through the entire next day as their group first explored Akihabara, then southwest to Harajuku. Though their group often split to separate wandering paths, Zoë and Neil hardly left each other’s side.

That night they both forwent another long carousal. Before Zoë went to bed Neil came to her room with a couple small glasses of sake, to which Zoë had taken a new and avid affinity. They cheersed, drank the nightcap, and sat widthwise on the bed with their backs against the wall. And their talk continued to feel exciting, engaging, alive. The zing of love she felt the previous night had undergone naught but continual affirmation.

For a while they gushed about the oeuvre of mid-21st century indie rock musician Will Thornwell and all of his bands throughout his career. After they settled on Under the West There Is Light by his band Orison as his crowning achievement, they eased into a comfortable silence.

And Neil said, ‘I really like you, Sauë.’

‘I really like you too.’

‘How do you feel about kissing? In general, I mean.’

‘Not wild about tongue, but I rather like kissing when it’s someone I really like.’

‘Oh my god, I’m not wild about tongue either! I’ve always felt super weird about it.’

‘I always did have a sneaking suspicion that being anti-tongue wasn’t just an ace thing.’

‘I mean, no deems on the people who like it—’

‘Oh, no deems at all.’

‘—but yeah, I just never found what was special about it. Had an ex who would actually tell me to (and I’m quoting here), “ram my tongue down her throat”.’

Zoë mimed a gag. ‘I would literally spew.’

‘And she’d try to ram her tongue down my thro—oh, it’s not worth revisiting. Back on-topic though, Sauë, I would really like to kiss you right now.’

‘Okay.’

For only a brief moment the two kissed soft and sweet, and in that moment a star was born brilliant and glittering in the infinite depths of their consciousness. Their lips drew into ecstatic smiles when they parted; Zoë took Neil’s hand and they sat in a silence lighter and warmer than aught before; they listened to each other breathe; their fingers moved gently against each other like the outstretched branches of neighboring elms.

=Λ=

San Francisco, California
August 2, 2396

The summer at the end of that year was, without contest, the best of Zoë’s life. Neil was the aureate centerpiece in its grand structure. She drew close to the others, Courtney Langston perhaps more so, and they went on many adventures. Jake’s mom restored old-world automobiles, and loaned them something called a ‘VW Bus’ for a roadtrip up the 101 to the Redwoods. They went to the UK and Western Europe; they went to India; they actually went back to Japan for one weekend. No one could get enough of each other.

Least of all, Zoë and Neil.

It had come out almost immediately that Neil was, indeed, sexual. For a long while this posed no threat to the love flourishing between them. He seemed more than content with the physicality Zoë was comfortable with: the light kissing, the cuddling, the handholding. At one point Zoë came across a text on acupressure and they took to it with alacrity, not only as a form of intimacy but as a practice of collaborative relaxation and meditation.

Friction began in August when Zoë floated an idea. It took more than a couple sessions with Ori for her to accept that doing so was not the direct cause of dissolution.

‘What do you think of nonmonogamy?’

Neil shrugged, swirled the settling particles of his morning tea back into the mixture. ‘Never really been one for it,’ he said. ‘Why? You meet someone?’

‘Me? No. I just… Sometimes I just feel a little—’ Don’t say ‘guilty’, don’t say ‘guilty’, don’t say ‘guilty’. ‘—guilty—’ Goddamn it. ‘—that you have needs I can’t meet.’

‘Please don’t feel guilty about who you are, love.’

‘I…’ Zoë closed her eyes, gulped, searched for words that refused her grasp. ‘I’m not feeling guilty about who I am; that’s not what I’m saying. I just… The common thread I saw in reading about nonmonogamy is that it’s about not being a barrier between a person you love and what they want. Within reason, obviously. And I know that you desire sex. I have looked deep within myself for any sexual desire, even for someone I love as much as you and I really don’t think it’s there. The bottom line is: I don’t want to be your barrier.’

‘Well, what do you think of nonmonogamy?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, how do you think you’d feel about me being with someone else?’

‘I won’t know until we try it, but I think I’d be happy with it. I really haven’t ever experienced jealousy in any way; I’m guessing I’d be pretty big on compersion.’

‘What if I met someone else and fell in love with them?’

Zoë felt, in that moment, a surge of joy at the thought. ‘You have shown me the most amazing love I have ever felt, and the thought of sharing that love with another person makes me feel wonderful.’

‘What if I fell in love with them, and then decided I only wanted to be with them?’

‘I would definitely be sad, of course, but, again, I wouldn’t want to be your barrier.’

‘Do you…?’ There was a sting in that beginning, and when he stopped himself it became clear that he realized how hurtful it would be to finish. Neil was so kind and compassionate before and after that this unfinished sentence haunted Zoë for a long time. Instead he said, ‘Sauë, I’m fine, I really am. So I feel sexual desire and my partner doesn’t; so what? I’m actually really content with just having alone time now and again.’

‘I don’t need to be sexual to know that alone time isn’t the same as intimacy with another person.’

‘That’s the thing: I do get the intimacy I want, Sauë: with you. Just sleeping next to you is all the intimacy I need. Then you throw in the cuddling, kissing, acupressure, all of that, and I’ve got it made. So what if you don’t want to have sex? I think what I have right now is perfect.’

You could have asked Zoë in that moment if this was a satisfactory end to the conversation, and she would have said, in all honesty, Yes. It held them over for another three weeks, over which time her security deteriorated chip by chip. She kept catching little hints and clues that their incompatibility was going to ultimately break them apart. In future therapy sessions she would come to realize that she perhaps misinterpreted and overanalyzed these hints and clues, and perhaps told herself a far more tragic story than the real one.

The details will be spared, but at the end of August a slightly embarrassing circumstance led to a resurgence of the above conversation that was far less smooth. Both became heated. Zoë pushed the subject of nonmonogamy too hard; Neil jumped to conclusions of not being loved the way he wanted to be loved, of not being enough, of not being trusted. It got ugly. They did not sleep in the same bed that night.

And the following weekend they met at Lands End in the late afternoon. Maybe neither of them had the intention of splitting when they arrived, but so it was. As the sun set, Neil stood up from the grass and walked forlorn back toward the city, leaving Zoë in the red light and the rush of waves.