A Woman's Nails (24 page)

“Yu-chan told me everything,”
says Reina abruptly.

Everything
, I think. What's everything? “
W
-what did she say?”

“She said you tried to rape her.”

I could almost laugh, half from embarrassment, half from the absurdity of such a claim. Though my recollection of the evening of that regretful evening remains fuzzy, one thing I do clearly remember is that I categorically did not want or try to have sex with that woman. Yes, my hands, inspired by the copious amount of alcohol I had consumed, did find their way into the sweating dank recesses of the girl’s reinforced panties, but, thank God, I had
the good
sense enough to pass out before things got out of control.

“I don't remember,” I reply pathetically. “
I blacked out. I don't even reme
mber how I got home that night.”

“That's not what she said,”
Reina shoots back. It seems as if she has prepared what she is going to say, knowing beforehand th
e very kind of flimsy excuses I’
d offer up in my defense and how exactly to blow th
em down. “
Yu-c
han said you didn’t look drunk.”

“
C'mon. You know better than that. If
anyone
should know that, it's
you
.”

“
I know, I know. I told her that you often get drunk, do stupid things a
nd don’t remember the next day.”

“Er, thanks a lot.”

“
You d
on’
t even know the half of it, Peador. She wanted to go to Abazuré. She said she could have you fired just like that if she wanted to, but
I talked her out of it.”

“Have me fired? For what?”

“
She says you lead he
r back to your apartment . . .”

“
I
didn’
t
! Look, if I remember anything, I do remember that
she
followed
me
back to my apartment.”

“I thought you didn’t remember.”

Oops, she does have me there.

“I don't,”
I
protest
.
Relax. Breathe. Inhale, count to ten, exhale.
“
Look, I don't remember much. The
whole night's a blur.”

“
She said you
told
her to come over.
You
invited her.”

“
Ah hell, I could have told
her anything. I do that when I’
m drunk. I could have asked he
r to marry me, for all I know. ‘You’
re the most beautiful girl in the world, Yu-chan!
You’
r
e the only one for me, Yu-chan.’”

“Do you remember kissing her?”

“
No!
”
I gasp, but it is with deep remorse that I do indeed remember kissing Yumi and I wish to God I could get that awful image out of my head.

“Did you French kiss her?”
Kazu interjects playfully.

He’
s been silent the whole time, but finding this opportunity to poke a little fun, proceeds to jab me with embarrassing questions. He asks if I copped a feel of her breasts, whether they were as big as he imagined, whether she had huge nipples or
not. Kazu pretends to lick Yumi’
s breasts, ca
using Reina howl with laughter.

Much as I wan
t him to give it a break, I can’t deny that if it weren’
t for him, the atmosphere woul
d be entirely unbearable, and I’
d have to suffer the full brunt of Rei
na’s anger.

“Did her nipples stand up?”
he asks, sticking his thumbs out from his chest and making Reina nearly choke on her beer
.

Even after Reina has regained her compos
ure, she continues laughing. It’
s a searing, contemptuous laughter, one
not so much responding to Kazu’
s sense of humor, so much as to ridicule me and drive me
back into the hole from which I’
ve only started to emerge. And the longer she laughs, the more it starts to wear on my nerves.

3

In the mornings as the sun would break through the curtains and set the dust and cat fur into flight, Reina would be in the kitchen, the sound of her knife tapping rhythmically against the cutting board as she chopped vegetables up for our morning soup. It was that steady
tapping and the smell of
miso
to which I often woke at her apartmen
t. When breakfast was served, I’
d extract myself from her bed and sit half awake at the small table near her balcony and lazily stuff my gob with food.

She’
d tell me how a boyfriend of hers had once proposed to her because he loved the morn
ings they had spent together. I’
d reply that I could easily see why and kiss tenderly her on the cheek.

After breakfast we would shower together where she would wash my back, chest arms and legs with a course cloth until my skin was red and sore, then rinse the thick lather from my body. And just as she had always made breakfast for me, she'd make love to me in that shower or, if she was having her period, would kneel before me and suck me off
. She’d ask, “Don’t you love this?”
and when I came into her mouth, I
’
d reply that, yes, yes, I did.

Once dressed, she’
d see me off at the door with a kiss on my c
heek. And if I ever forgot, she’
d remind me gently to kiss her in return. As I left she would then tell me to have a great day. And, thanks to her, I often would.

I would hurry to the station, then take the s
ubway into town and hope I didn’
t bump into Yumi arriving from the other direction. She never did catch me sneaking back in the morning, nor did she ever know about the Sundays Reina and I had spent with each other, the dinners we had shared, or the videos we had watched together on her bed.

In the early days of our affair, I thought it was almost possible for me to fall in love with Reina. To say the least, when so many men where chasing after her heart, I counted my
self
fortunate to be the one she was sleeping with.

4

Reina pushes herself away from the bar after she and Kazu have had yet another belly laugh at my expense and walks towards the toilets in the back. I excuse myself and follow after her and wait until she comes out.

As soon as she emerges, I st
ick my face into hers and say, “Look I’
m getting really fucking tired
of you and Kazu laughing at me.”

“I have nothing to say to you,”
she sna
ps back with a tone I’ve never heard before. “
You're like a goddamn dog! Who you gonna
to try to
fu
ck next, Peador? Huh? Our boss?”

There isn’t anything
I can say.

“
You know, you always tell me that you think Mie left you because of this reason or that, but you're wrong, Peador. The rea
son Mie left you is because you’
re
an arsehole!”

13

TATAMI

1

I don't know how Japanese businessman do it, slogging away at their
kaisha
[8]
six days out of seven, week in, week out, with nary a ho
liday to break up the monotony.

After three months of my o
wn six-day week work routine, I’
ve come to the quick conclusion that I’m not cut out to be a
salaryman
. If it weren’
t for the long afternoon breaks, three to four lovely hours out of the crosshairs of Abazuré and my co-workers, I probably would have t
hrown in the towel a month ago.

I punch out at
a minute after twelve and as I’
m leaving, Yumi takes a stab at sarcasm, saying it must be nice to always have the afternoons off. The bitch, dressed
in black
from horns to hooves, has to stay in the office until five.

I say, “Yes. Yes, it is. Very much so,”
and hurry out the door. I drop by my apartment and change into something more comfortable, the
n leave for the station where I’
m supposed to meet Tatami at half past. On the way, I pop in the neighborhood
kombini
, the
Sebun-Irebun
(
7-11
)
next to the fire station, to
pick up some snacks and drinks.

At the drinks cooler, a lovely girl stands next to me. She giggles when she s
ees the contents of my basket—f
ull of snacks and beer. I have a look at the content of
hers—a
bentô
, a bottle of oolong tea, and pantyhose, and
have a laugh myself. Oh, how I’
d love to blow Tatami off and take this girl back to my place for a proper
Show-and-Tell
, but, after weeks of being treated like a mangy dog by the girls at work, I ha
ven’
t got the confidence to do so. I smile, nod, mouth
konnichiwa
, and scurry off towards the register, itchy tail between my legs.

Incidentally, a middle-aged student of mine who works part-time at one of these
Sebun-Irebun
s while her kids are away at school told me something that was surprising. The clerk punches in a variety of information about each custom
er before ringing up the sale—m
ale or female, approximate age, and so on. This along with information about what has been bought and other data is immediately beamed to
Sebun-Irebun’s
headquarters where it is collected and analyzed by computers seeking to further increase the convenience store’s sales and, presumably, put the
Lawson
convenience store a block away out of business. The information by these mini-surveys is used to maximize the effi
ciency of the convenience store’
s layout and display. Salty snacks are placed near the beer cooler so that the shopper unwittingly picks up a pack of potato chips when all he came in for was a can of beer. To get to the checkout counter, shoppers have to pass by the
bentô
where they will, more often than not, drop a small packet of prepared food into their basket. Gum and mints and other unnecessary, but inexpensive items compulsively bought are within easy reach before the register, and the cigarette rack tempt you at eye height as you pay for your stuff. No stones are left unturned in order to part the customer from his hard-earned yen. So, in the name
of recalcitrant consumerism, I’
ve considered trying to gum up the system by making irrelevant purchases, such as buying feminine hygiene products with beef jerky, condoms with
Ribon
, a
manga
for young girls, and a toothbrush with
wasabi
paste.

Once my data has been beamed to 7-11's GHQ, I head to the subway station where Tatami is waiting for me, overdressed as always. Today, she is wearing an odd-looking
dirndl reminiscent of a
Tyrolean
fraulein
. It wouldn’
t surprise m
e if she were to jump up,
slap the heels of her feet, and yodel.

2

After Reina and I split up for the
n
th and final time, I was at a loss what to do with myself. Not that I was melancholy
about the break up, but I wasn’
t exactly dancing a jig on the gr
ave of our relationship either.

I was missing out on more than just the kinky sex. For one, I never did get to see any fireflies, or
hotaru
as they’
re called here. It was like trying to pry state secrets from hardened spies to obtain any relevant information about the damned bugs. Oh, I did learn that
Auld Lang Syne
was known as
Hotaru no Hikari
, or
The Glimmer of Fireflies
in Japanese, that Ken Takakura who had starred in my primer on Japan,
Black Rain
, had also starred in the
Kamikaze
classic film,
Hotaru
. I also learned that there was an anti-war animated film by Hayao Miyazaki called
Hotaru no Haka
(Grave of the Fireflies). But no one could offer me any advice on where to see them, other than to schlepp up some river after sunset. In a city with hundreds of rivers, streams, creeks and brooks, that was no help at all.