A Woman's Nails (12 page)

“
I hope they don't actually carry the pizza their pockets,
”
I say.

“
M
aybe they stay warmer that way.”

“The pizza? Or the delivery boy?”

Reina laughs and her head comes to rest against my shoulder.

I ask her if you have to pay extra for the lint.

“The what?”

“
Nothing, nothin
g,” I say. “You feeling hungry?”

She nods. I’d offer to cook for her if I'd had a scrap of food, let alone any pots or pans, in the apartment. She says I needn't bother, that it would be easier to eat out at a restaurant in the neighborho
od or have something delivered.

I continue sifting through the junk mail for other restaurants that deliver and come across a small sheet of paper with some kind of list printed on both sides. At the top of the page is a starburst with the boldfaced message: 5 videos for only 10,000 yen!!! With all the Chinese characters, I can hardly read it. Still, I don’t need to tax my imagination to figure it out: it’s a list of porn titles.

“
I th
ink I'll keep this one,”
I say.

“Here's one you might like,”
Rein
a says, pointing at the flyer. “
Lolicon
Deluxe. Six Dô S
ukebe High School Girls
.”

“
I know
sukebe
what means
,
but
dô sukebe
?”

“
Very, very
sukebe
.”

“
Six Very, Very Horny High School Girls
.
I see. And what about this one?”
I ask pointing at a porn title written entirely in Chinese characters.

Reina tilts her head
for a moment, then translates: “
Sexually Frustrated, Explosion Breasts Step-Mother
.”

“
Explosion Breast Step-Mother? Hmm, intriguing, but I t
hink I'll pass. How about this?”

“
Midara-na Te OL
. Hmmm.
Lascivious
Hand Office Ladies?”

“
What on earth is the
lasc
i
vious
hand
?”

“
Onanî
,
”
she replies matter-of-factly.

I get the impression that I'm supposed to understand what
onanî
means
and feel stupid that I don't. “
Onanî
?”

“
Yes,
onanî
. That's English, right?”

“
Does
onanî
sound like English to you?”

“
No, now that you say so, it doesn't, but . . . I just assumed it was English because it's always written in
katakana
.”

“
What does it mean, anywa
ys? Curious minds want to know!”

“
Pajero
.”

“
Good Lord!” And then it comes to me like a flash of inspiration. “Oh, now I get it.
Onanî
is onanism!”

“I told you it was English.”

“
Yeah, but nobody says onanism.
Masturbating Office Ladies
. Ve
ry classy.”

Among other things, there is a
pamphlet for something called “Blue Juice,”
a nauseating concoction of herbs and wild grasses that is supposed to be good for you, a menu from an
udon
restaurant, and seve
ral full-colored flyers from a “
Delivery Hea
lth”
service advertising call girls.

Reina asks me if I know what the postcard-sized flyers are called.

I take a sta
b in the dark, “The Good News?”

“
No, they're called
pinku chirashi
.”
[3]

“Why pink?”

Because, I’m told, the color pink has long been associated with porno
graphy, prostitution, and such.

“
Interesting,” I say.
“In the US, the color blu
e is.”

“
They're
called blue flyers in America?”

“
No, no, no. Not the flyers, the
industry
. As far as I know, we don't have these in the States. You put something like this in the wrong person's mailbox and you're liable to get arrested or sued by some nutt
y Christian.”

“Sued? Whatever for?”

“
Because he'll claim he'd been emotionally
traumatized just finding it in.”

“Americans are stupid,”
Reina
conclude
s.

One of the
pinku chirashi
features a dozen girls posing in a variety of lingerie or costumes, such as a stewardess and policewoman. Most of them have hidden their identity by covering their faces with their hands.

The vitals of e
ach are given, including their “name,”
age, height, proportions and the size of their breasts, along with a short comment. 19 year old Momo
here with the E-cups is “Very Good!!!” 172cm-tall Sumire is “Dynamite!” Aya is a “New Face!”
Eighteen-year-old Nana might be a little needy in the chest department, but th
e flyer assures me that she is “Very, Very Popular!” And oh, yes, you
can
“AF”
the 23-year-old Natsu, if you like! AF? Why anal fuck, of course. The girls will come to your home, hotel room, anywhere you like. But wait ther
e’s more! All of the girls are “Amateurs.”

Yeah, right
!

I place the
pinku chirashi
on the “keep”
pile,
telling Reina that I
never know
when they might come in handy.

“Have you ever done it?”
Reina asks.

“
Done w
hat?”

She points to the
pinku chirashi
.

“With a prostitute? No, never.”

“
Really? Why not? A friend of mine went after winning seventy thousand yen at the boat races. He spent it all at a
S
oapland
.”

“
Seventy thousand yen!
Just to get laid? What a waste!”

“
Not to him. He said it was like
he had died and gone to heaven.”

I don't know about Reina, but with all this talk of
S
oaplands
, “delivery health” and adult videos, I tempted to give into the
Lascivious
Hand myself.

“
You
r gas is switched on, isn't it?”
Reina asks, getting off the floor.

“Yeah, I think so. Why?”

“
Well, I'm really sweaty and would like to take a show
er. If you don't mind, that is.”

“
Mind? No, not at all. I was
thinking of taking one myself.”

My heart is racing like a hummingbird's, my head is light with the titillating possibiliti
es suddenly arrayed before me. “
W-w-why don't you go ahead and h-h-hop into the show
er first. I'll get you a towel.”

Reina disappears behind the half curtain in the entrance to the utility room where she starts to undress. As I open a box looking for my towels, I catch a glimpse of her jeans dropping to her ankles, then her panties. My heart is in my throat, pounding away mercilessly. My hands shake. After I hear her enter the bathroom and turn on the water, I enter the utility room, dizzy with excitement, and place the towels atop the washing machine. The shower door hasn't been completely shut offering me a long slice of her slim body. I can't help but look. I stare shamelessly at her right leg and soft right buttock, her narrow waist and back, the light brown curls that fall on her square shoulder. She suddenly turns around, sending me scrambling clumsily out of the utility room
and knocking the curtain down.

“Peador?”

I try to answer, but lust has made my mouth go dry.

The water is turned off, the shower door opens abruptly, and Reina pokes her head out of the utility room.

“Peador, there's no hot water.”

She emerges from the utility room wrapped in a towel, and after hanging the curtain back up, walks into the kitchen,
where a moment later exclaims, “
Atta, atta
! Here it is.”

I'm moved by curiosity to follow her wet footprints into the kitchen where I find her crouched down and turning a valve under the sink. Her pale bottom peeks out from beneath the towel. Turning her head, she notices me
gawking down at her, and says, “What you looking at?”

“N-n-nothing.”

She closes the cabinet door, then stands and presses a button on the wall making a small green light come on. A second red light turns on when she lets
water in the kitchen sink run.

“Yosh,” she says, turning around. “You've got hot water now.”

“
So that's how you turn me . . . er,
it
on.”

Reina’s maddeningly gorgeous, and I can barely keep myself from ripping the thin terrycloth towel off, and
burying my face in her crotch.

The only thing stopping me, however, is
tomorrow night's date with Mie.

Nevertheless, I’m like a volatile gas. All that
is needed is one tiny spark—an
inviting touch, or a half step that
would bring our bodies closer—then
, I wouldn't have an excuse to keep from pulling her into my arms. I wouldn't have to hold back the kisses. All it would take is one small caress to ignite me. One kiss, and I'd burn this ap
artment building to the ground.

Reina takes that precious half step forward, her body just brushes mine and my erection is peering out of the front left pocket of my Levis like a periscope. But nothing happens. I'm frozen, unable to move. Paralyzed with indecision, all I manage to do is let a pathetic little gasp of air out as she passes.

I'm a buffoon, an impotent buffoon
!

I should grab Reina’s arm, tug at the towel so it falls to the floor, and do exactly what I've had a mind to do all day. My hand rises. It's an involuntary reaction; my instincts, God love 'em, are finally kicking in! But just as my finger grazes her arm, I catch a glimpse of Mie's pajamas
in the clear plastic container.

Reina pauses before the curtain
.
“Yes?”
she asks.

“
I, I'm just going to get some beer
at the 7-11. You want anything?”

She says she doesn't need anything, and ducks under the curtain.

Go after her! Follow her, you feckin’ idiot. Now or never!

I see the towel drop to the floor, hear the shower door close and the water start to run. I can't stand it anymore. I back step it quickly into the kitchen, unbutton my jeans and start to
pajero
over the sink.

What little remained of my dignity has been completely forfeited.

7

MIE

1

8:30pm. I’m waiting in front of the Oyafukô Dôri
Mister Donut
, bathed in garish neon light
and serenaded by Nat King Cole:
“
Roll . . . out . . . those . . . lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer! Those days of soda . . . and pretzels . . . and beer
. . .
”

For a Monday night, there's a fair amount of pedestrian traf
fic moving up and down Oyafukô.

Anticipation of the long-awaited reunion with Mie had me as restless as a child on Christmas Eve. Waking before dawn, I laid on my
futon
, staring sleeplessly at the ceiling for an hour and a half before giving up on sl
eep and getting ready for work.

I left my apartment early enough to catch the members of the local fire station lackadaisically performing their morning radio calisthenics and got to the office where the cleaning lady was sloshing a mop around.

The morning lesson was interminable. The students' uncharacteristic reticence didn't help. On the clock above the dusty chalkboard, the second hand moved as if it were weighed down with lead sinkers. The minute hand needed regular coaxing and encouragement to help it get through the hour. My afternoon break was hardly better. Nothing I did helpe
d push the stalled day forward.