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Newport

Doug Hawley

    Meeting Kayoko changed my life. I was in my late twenties at the time and had been through a few discouraging relationships at the time – the intriguing beauty that disappeared without explanation that I never heard from again, the one that I took for granted because I didn’t think she was good enough, and the one whose last heterosexual relationship was with me.
    Gretchen was one of the women with whom I had a normal relationship. After a few dates neither one of us felt any spark, but became good friends. We shared an interest in sports and both were Portland Trailblazer fans. After runs on the beach, we traded bad date and romance stories. I think that she exaggerated about how bad her dates were to make me feel better about mine. She was too sharp and attractive to have as bad luck as she claimed. By introducing me to Kayoko, she did me the best favor anyone had ever done for me.
    After one of our runs while I was sucking wind and close to collapse, she asked if I wanted to go on a blind date with a “super friend of mine”. If I hadn’t been doing so badly on my own and had enough oxygen to speak, I would have said “hell no”. Instead of that, a few minutes later when I could speak I said “sure, has to be an improvement in my love life”.
    When we met over coffee I had a hard time not gawping at her. She’s a biologist at the Oregon Coast Aquarium just south of Newport Oregon, where I’m a restaurant owner, but she could easily be mistaken for a model. If you knew me, it would be clear that she was a nine having coffee with a three if I’m generous with myself and round up. She would be a ten if not for the gap in her teeth, which has always turned me on. Maybe because I was so happy to just have coffee with her that my normal abysmal game rose to the occasion. She seemed generally amused to hear my bad jokes (what do you call a broken off tree – I’m stumped) and screwy stories from the restaurant. Within twenty minutes she was totally engaged and asking me about recipes. I was surprised about her disgust with my frog dishes though.
    She had sad stories about the racism that she had faced. She mentioned some of the horrible names she had been called in high school. I won’t repeat them. I’d heard enough from some of my old girlfriends to be disgusted by the casual racism some practiced. I’ll take just about anyone ahead of a white bigot.
    I had to act like I didn’t want to try to take her home that night because I didn’t want to scare her off. I invited her to that old standby dinner and a movie for a second date instead. Not much choice of movies in Newport, but we made do with what we had. I didn’t pay much attention; it might have been “The Sound Of Music” for all I know. Mostly it was us groping and sucking face. On the way out she said what I was thinking “I hope you’re ready for the third date next. We’ll go to the bar before we go back to your place.” She could only see my face, but my whole body was smiling at the prospect.
    On the third date a couple of days later we drank way too much at the Inn Between, and had a delightful evening back at my place. I’m not a gentleman, but I’ll act like one in this case. I won’t give you the play by play, but two odd things struck me about her. When she was otherwise naked, she kept on a wide neckband. The oddity of it made me think back to realize that I had never seen her neck. When I asked her about it she said that a disfiguration made her self-conscious. She made a joke of it “Don’t worry, I haven’t been bitten by a vampire and you can see my neck after we’re married”. Even though I thought she was joking about marriage, I was happy with the idea.
    A scarier observation was that during the heat of passion her body remained cool, even cold. She explained “I’ve got a rare metabolic condition, but don’t worry I’ve not dying anytime soon.”
    The next couple of months were easily the happiest of my life up to that point. We’d go for a picnic on the beach and I’d be dressed in several layers in the cool windy weather and she’d go swimming in the cold Oregon waters. I worried about her, but she was an expert swimmer and never got cold. I was a bit disappointed when she went back to Japan to visit her family, but she said she’d be back soon. After all of my earlier heartbreak, I wondered if it was really a short break and if we would pick up where we left off.
    I shouldn’t have worried. She came back on schedule and said “It’s time to put a ring on it. We’re getting married.”
    We had a small wedding with a few friends and family. I didn’t expect any surprises, but I had forgotten her promise to reveal her neck. She has gills. I freaked out and fell over some furniture before she mentioned “Oh yeah, and I swam back to Japan.”
    In most ways, being married to an amphibian is much like being married to another human. She is more active in warm weather like other cold blooded animals, but is fine in cold water. My guilty secret is being aroused by her gills. I won’t go into detail, but I feel so privileged to be the only one who gets to see and caress them. After my poor history with women, I’d recommend dating outside our species to anyone who is lucky enough to have the opportunity. Best of all, there’s a newt on the way – we don’t know when it will arrive because the gestation period for human – amphibian hybrids is unknown.

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