A Woman's Nails (21 page)

She turned abruptly and scurried down the stairs in a panic, a string of
gomen-nasai
s
[6]
trailing behind her like a vapor trail. On the landing she had left a large bag containing my birthday present and several well-choreographed hopes.

“That stupid bitch,”
Reina said as she emerged cautiously from the kitchen. After checking that the door was bolted, she kneeled before me and started to blow me.

I had no complaints with Reina 's fellatio skills, but as she was sucking me off, my mind wandered through all the muck I'd been through over the year since my last birthday when Mie and I first made love. As attractive as Reina was, as sexy as she was, as full of energy and life as she was, and as good as she was at polishing my knob, I still missed Mie.

Reina stopped sucking, and motioned for me to sit down, and when I did, she straddled me and slipped my cock into her.

“
I want yo
u to say my name when you come,”
she sai
d as she began moving her hips.

She was wetter than usual. The anger had become built up sexual energy and before long she was off to wherever it is that women like her go to when overcome by pleasure. Betw
een quick, shallow breaths, she’
d call out my name, each time louder and louder, each time with more and more violent thrusts of her hips, as if she were impaling herself on my cock.

Distracted by the year-old memories that were
filling my head, I just couldn’
t come, couldn't have come were a gun pressed against my temple, so I let her continue screwing with blind abandon. Each time my cock slipped in and out of that dripping, wet hole of hers, I wondered what I was doing and why I was with her and not someone else. Why was Reina moaning above me, fucking me and asking for me to call out her name when I came? Why did I have to pretend that there was any meaning in what we were doing when in fact, after a month of fucking, there still wasn't anything to it? We were two people who, thrown arbitrarily together, ended up having sex because it was easier to fuck than to feel.

Moving in and out, as natural as the tide, crashing against her crotch like the waves against a breakwater, just as cold, just as regular, just as insignificant. There was a time when the act had made
sense, when for sentimentality’
s sake I could say that I was making love, but what was I really doing here? Only one thing: each time I drove myself into Reina, I was
putting in another nail in Mie’
s coffin, burying someone I loved by fucking another I cared less and less for each day.

“
I
want you to come into my mouth,”
she said after yet another monu
mental “fuck you, Yumi”
orgasm.

“
What
”
"

Gasping for air, but not quite ready to give up the fight, she repeated with some difficulty what she had said and for her sake, I acquiesced.

7

The next day at work Yumi apologized sheepishly for having woken me and promised never to go by my place again uninvited. Not that I would ever invite her,
but that was besides the point.

I told her not to worry about it then offered to take her out the following evening. I didn't want to, but I felt I owed it to her for the way I had behaved the last time we had gone out. Besides, she had left her birthday present at my front door and, no matter how
irritating I found her, I didn’
t have the heart to open her present without her. She flashed her Chicklet teeth at me, and agreed to wait around in the office until I was done.

For expediency’
s sake, we went to an awful Italian restaurant a few blocks away from our office. God only knows how it had managed to keep from going bankrupt.

I brought along Yumi’
s present of wine and glasses. There would be no more returning to my apartment blind drunk and horny tonight. No, enough unspoken damage had already taken place. So, I took the bottle out of the bag, looked at it and smiled. It was one that I liked, one I must have mentioned liking to her though didn't remember when. She had, no doubt, jotted the name down and gave it a starring role in her scheme to woo me. Returning the bottle to its bag, I thanked her.

“
I, I, I thought it would be nice if we might go somewh
ere and drink it, um, together,”
she said.

“
Yes, that would
be nice, but . . .”
But, then I had no intention of letting that happen. Not tonight, not tom
orrow, not in a million years. “
It's been a long day . . . I'm tired. It would
be a waste to drink it tonight.”

Once she realized her plan was starting to crumble she grew as dark as the heavy black clouds in the evening sky outside. I no longer had the energy nor the desire to try to cheer her up, not when she'd been, as Reina often reminded me, an insufferable bitch.

We finish our dinner in silence, and, after splitting the bill, walk out into the humid night and head towards the subway station. At the entrance, she pauses before descending the stairs, looks up at me and asks the question that she's been eager to ask since that awful night at my apartment.

“
What
do you think of me?”

I inhale the thick air. My arms are sticky with sweat, my back soaked through the shirt. The rainy season started a week ago according to the Meteorological Agency, but today is the first day you can really feel it.

I look away from Yumi, out at the soft halos around the streetlamps caused by the humidity. A year ago I was so deeply in love, now I am so far from it. I don't like this Yumi, and not just for the bad teeth, the acne, or the girdle. I don't like her because in a way she reminds me of myself, forlorn and groping for anything to believe in, anything to give her hope that her heart isn't irreversibly broken. I search the heavy mist for the words that hurt the least, but the trouble is they all hurt if they are at all truthful, and she needs to hear the truth.

“
Yu-chan, I'm sorry, but . . . to be honest . . . there's . . .
nothing . . . in here for you.”
I touch my chest
for effect
. There used to be a beat there, but now there's
only a dead, cold hollow calm. “
I really appreciate how you feel for me and the kindness you've shown me, but, but . . . I'm not in love with you. And frankly, .
. . I don't think I ever will.”

Tears collect around her eyes, then fall. That all too common stream of mascara and foundation starts trickling slowly down her cheeks. She smiles, but it's not the kind of smile that you’d ever want to see.

“I'm sorry, Yu-chan.”

She shakes her head, then waves me off as I step towards her. She no longer wants to have anything to do with me, or my sympathy. Without saying goodbye, she turns and descends the stairs. No hug, no
friendly kiss on the cheek. She’
s gone. Then the tide comes rushing in, washing my ankles and knees and engulfing me with the chill I feel every time the loneliness is palpable.

As I head for my apartment, the heavens open up and the rain falls. It falls so hard that it no longer seemed to be falling, becoming instead a solid wall two hundred yards thick of water that I have to swim through to get back to my apartment. In the two minutes it takes to get home I get so thoroughly wet that there's not a dry corner on my body. My shoes are soaked through to the socks, the socks soaked through to the skin and undressing is like peeling the linen from a fresh wound. Everything is
sopping
wet with Yumi’s tears.

11

YOKO

1

Listen:

In Japanese,
Jimé jimé
is that unpleasant, sticky feeling during the rainy season when humidity's got its clammy hands all over you;
mushi mushi
when it damn
near smothers you.

To the Japanese ear,
potan
is the sound of a drop of water plopping into, say, a bucket;
pota pota
, the tune a leaky faucet sings; and
jah jah
, water gushing out of a pipe.

The Japanese will hear
potsu potsu
as raindrops start falling upon dry ground;
shito shito
, when it drizzles; and
zah zah
when it pours.

Strong winds howl with a
byoo byoo
making the windows of your apartment rattle,
gata gata
. And, thunder, when woken by the
pika pika
of lightning, will grumble loudly with a
goro goro
.

While
nuru nuru
describes the slimy feel every surface has when it’s been balmy for days on end,
beta beta
is how your sweaty skin feels on uncomfortably
jimé jimé
days.

Yo
u're dripping with sweat if you’
re
dara dara
; drenched to the skin if you're
bisho bisho
.

And, while
niwaka amé
, you may recall, means a sudden shower, a
doshaburi
is a downpour; and
oh-amé
, a torrential rain.
Konuka amé
means a light mist; and
kiri samé
, a drizzle.

Confused already? This is not even a
potan
in the
baketsu
. There are 1190
rain
related words and ph
rases in the Japanese language.

One more! Though
Yûdachi
, which literally means
evening stand
, refers to a late after
noon summer shower, you shouldn’
t assume that
asadachi
, or
morning stand
, means an early morning shower. Far from it, an
asadachi
, my friend, is sure as shootin’ the
Morning Woodie
.

2

T
here’
s been no let up to
the rain since Tuesday evening’
s
doshaburi
when Yumi’
s hopes were dashed and another crack was added to that fragile little
heart of hers. From then on we’
ve had torrential downpours and light showers, drizzly mornings followed by thundery afternoon squalls, and night after balmy night of the rain falling, falling, fall
ing down to an inundated earth.

Another day of this, and I’
d better sta
rt drawing up plans for an ark.

Early this morning, I was jolted to attention by the clamor of timpani and snare drums. Leaden raindrops fell like birdshot against the tin roof of the storage container atop my building; the heavens pealed with thunderous profanity.

I've heard that the Japanese hide their belly buttons after a thunderclap to keep them from being stolen from the
Kaminari Gami
. Why the
God
of
Thunder has a navel fetish is just more proof that even among the
kami
, it takes all types.

After the second peal of thunder I rolled over in my
futon
and tried covering my head with my pillow, but it was no use. There would be no
sleeping with the racket Nature’
s marching band was making.

Moving listlessly to the bathroom, I took the first what would be three cold showers that day, rinsing a night’s worth of sweat off my body.

Because the laundry re
fused to dry—i
t still hung droopingly from hangers like the we
t standard of a defeated army—I
dre
ssed casually. Thank G
od I didn’
t have to wear a suit and tie to work like the losers teaching at the big English broiler houses like
NOVA
,
GEOS
and
AEON
.

That was about all I could be thankful for, though; the weather had made it hard to get fired up about anything. Eating, too, had become a chore, so I was skipping breakfast more often than not, which was just as well; the only scrap of food I had in my kitchen nook was a loaf of bread, green with mold, and soggy potato chips.

With the sun eclipsed behind a sullen sky for so long, every surface had become wet and slimy, treacherously slick, so I made a cautious descent down the steps of my apartment building, one hand gripping the banister, the other brushing the wall in case I lost my footing.