Phoenyx: Flesh & Fire (25 page)

“And that’s why I always loved you so much,” he told her. “You know just how to bring me back down to earth when I have strayed too far towards the heavens.”

“I’m serious,” I said, “I want to learn something. You must have so much to offer.”

“Knowledge in itself is of no value – it is its application which makes it worth knowing.”

“And when he isn’t writing fortune cookies, he likes to paint spiral staircases,” she hissed in my ear. “Man’s more twisted than two corkscrews welded end to end.”

Then I laughed out loud, and turned back to Johnny. I ran my fingers through Honey’s hair and down her back.

“Maybe I just want to learn something for the sake of learning,” I said. “You know, for fun?”

Johnny looked ready to spill another philosophical platitude when Honey stopped his intentions with a finger to his lips.

“How about some Kanji characters? Like, her name, for example.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “go on.”

He stood up and turned off the drum music, the need for the atmospheric soundtrack now over. He went back to that cupboard again, the one where he kept the knife, and rattled around for a minute. Then he returned with a couple of brushes and pots of ink.

“First of all: we would say your name as
fushichou
or as
fenikkusu
. If I were to write it, I would do this:” He dipped a brush into the red paint pot and wrote three characters 不死鳥 across my breasts.

I looked down, impressed at the ease with which he traced the paint over me to render complex symbols of beauty.

“I think that will have to be my next tattoo,” I said. “Underneath the bird on my back. Could you do that?”

“I could. But so much at once? Let your skin become accustomed to what you have first.”

“I think
I
want that as my first tattoo, too,” Honey added, and fixed me with a deep, longing look. I felt embarrassed again at such devotion and commitment. I could see that she was going to leave me no easy way out of the permanent relationship that she still seemed determined to pursue. Was I really worthy of her, I asked myself? Was it possible for two such different individuals to truly enjoy such an arrangement?

Perhaps that was a question that could only be answered with time.

Chapter Eight

Wings of Fire

We stayed over at Johnny’s for most of the rest of our stay, making almost no use of the hotel suite at all except when he was working, and on our final night when we faced the unwelcome task of packing everything up to go home.

“I want to come back here,” I said as I gazed out of the window at the flickering night-time cityscape. “In fact, I don’t want to leave at all.”

“I know,” Honey said as she came up behind me and looped her arms around my neck. “I was like that after my first time in New York. And my first time, and my
second
time here which was why I knew I’d be back. I left Kelley in New York and never got back to see her, so I made damn sure that I wasn’t going to do the same with Johnny, and lose him too. But at least, now I’ve got you, as well.”

“You’ll have both of us,” I said, focusing on my naked reflection in the window pane. “I
need
to do this all over again. It’s essential to something in my mind, or my soul, or whatever. I don’t know how else to say it – I just know how I feel.”

“Then there’s nothing to stop us,” she said. “So long as you stay around. I’m happy to be yours, if you’re happy to be mine.”

I held her hands between my own and pressed them to my chest.

“I don’t think I’ve ever needed anything so bad,” I sighed, worried at how vague that sounded. But she didn’t push it. She just rested her head on my shoulder and watched the blinking, scintillating night sky with me, the thousands of lit skyscraper windows standing out like stars. She drew back from me and I saw her floating, transparent ghost run its eyes down my spine.

“That bastard is so talented,” she said. “That bird seems to move and flicker every time I look at it.”

The healing balm still lay heavy and cool on my skin, but the wait was nearly over. I’d soon be able to wear normal clothes and a bra again, just in time to rip them all off at the Kitty Klub and, I hoped, spread a little awe when they saw Johnny’s wonderful art displayed on my skin.

Through the half-awake hustle and rush to get to the airport and make sure we had done everything that we needed to do, I didn’t have any time to feel bad that final morning, or even when we boarded the plane to leave Tokyo. It wasn’t until we were sitting at 10,000 feet that I chanced to look down, and saw Honshu and the islands in the sea beneath us, so far away through the clouds like an unreachable, magical land, that I felt something wrench inside me. It felt as if I really had left a part of me behind, despite taking away a permanent souvenir cut into my flesh.

Honey was talking at me, something about some shop she’d once visited before which sold the most amazing clothes and which she’d forgotten to take me to, but I wasn’t listening. I was too tied up with my own growing sorrow, which became more pronounced with every mile away from Japan that we flew. I almost felt as if I should never have gone with her at all, to have been saved this terrible sense of loss now. I had no idea why I felt that way. I liked Johnny – it wasn’t so much him that I was missing, or the wonders of the city he lived in – it was the effect he had on Honey, and how she was with him, which affected me in such new and wonderful ways in turn. It was as if the three of us combined to form a greater, higher form of life and that without him I was somehow losing part of her, and myself, as well.

I made some noises during her talk, so she wouldn’t think I was ignoring her, but I was in no mood for conversation. My mind was in turmoil and my emotions made me feel sad, scared, worried and lonely all at once. Eventually she stopped talking and turned to gaze out of the window. Peace followed, punctuated only by the quiet hum of the engines and the occasional rustle of a newspaper or hushed mutter of conversation from across the aisle.

“So,” she asked me during a quiet lull, “when do I get to entice you to pack up and move in with me?”

I felt very awkward, the way I always did whenever she launched that question at me. I had no good answer to it, no real objection, other than that it felt a bit early in my life to be moving in with someone else permanently. And yet there was no reason why I should
not
. Being with her was wonderful, so essential to me; yet like great wine, or wonderful cuisine, she was not something I felt I could partake of constantly. I had no way of explaining that, though, that didn’t sound like ‘
I’ll see you and be with you now and again, when I want to and when I have the time
’, which was the only way I could articulate how I felt. So she knew she had me on a hook, and her eyes widened as she awaited my forthcoming answer.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Let me sleep on it.”

She blew an exasperated half-laugh down her nose. “Okay. I thought you’d done that already, but don’t worry, I’m tough. It’s not a rejection, anyway. At least, not yet.”

“Don’t be like that. It’s just a bit of a change for me, that’s all. I’m still figuring it out.”

“
Change
?” she repeated, “What, like moving to the big city – becoming a stripper, and showing off your snatch to total strangers –
wasn’t
a big change?”

“I don’t mean that, Honey. I’m not – aw look, I know what I mean, but I can’t put it into words.”

“Really? So what will you not have at my place that you’ll have in your little rooms on Wilhelmsgasse, Phoenyx? Huh? Because really, I can’t see the problem here. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

A couple of heads across the aisle turned to look in our direction, as her voice had raised itself during that last tirade. Eyes blinked behind spectacles and books and newspapers were lowered to reveal curious stares.

I shrank back into my seat, wishing I was anywhere but right there at that moment.

“Don’t shout at me, Honey. I’ve been totally straight with you since day one. I don’t have any secrets or any agenda, I’ve just never lived with anyone else who wasn’t my mother. That’s all.”

“Well I can play ‘mommy’ if that’s your thing. But, really – I’m not going to keep on asking you forever.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, taking her hand in mine. “I’m still a bit shit at this kind of thing. I feel I’m still catching up, and it’s all my fault—”

“No, Phoenyx.
No
. Don’t go giving me that
mea maxima culpa
bullshit, it doesn’t look good on you. But hey, maybe you’re really destined for bigger things. Who knows? The way you were destined to get your tattoo, say.” She turned away and looked out the window, gnawing on her fingernails.

I felt a deeply-rooted fear crawl through me, like some kind of insidious creeping plant extending its tendrils throughout my body and soul. She was hinting at something I didn’t like the sound of, something that felt like an ultimatum, or an endgame. Why couldn’t she just let me be as I was, seeing each other whenever we chose while remaining the free spirits we both were at heart? Did the flighty butterfly really want to be tethered? Perhaps the symbolism of her rigid bondage sessions with Johnny ran deeper than I thought, and I had her all wrong. Perhaps she
wanted
someone to drag her down to earth and keep her. And the more I tried to understand that, the more confused I became. I had no understanding of psychology or what really motivated people. I’d been taught to take people as I found them, but that was becoming harder and harder to do of late.

“I don’t follow you, sorry.”

“Skip it, babe. I’m tired. These hormones are kicking me in the fucking head just now – my emotions are up and down like a pair of tits on a trampoline. I’m gonna grab some sleep.”

She pulled her hand out of mine and squeezed herself in against the window, curling up tight into a ball.

I threw my head back in the seat and stared up at the air conditioning funnel above me. I should have felt elated, having just spent two weeks in the most exotic and exciting place on earth and seen things, met people and experiences beyond my dreams. Yet I felt flat. I knew Honey thought I was letting her down, even stringing her along, and I had no idea how to convince her that I wasn’t like that. I hadn’t had a relationship of any kind since my schooldays, when my last boyfriend dumped me at age eighteen when I refused to let him put his hand down my panties.

I tried to gather my thoughts into a cohesive argument, or statement, something to give to her when she woke up to reassure her and lighten her mood. But my mind was numb, frozen with the fear that I was somehow just about to bring to an end a beautiful relationship.

Yet Honey had again demonstrated that prickly quality in her character which was bearable in small doses, but which over time could really grate on the senses. That was the closest we had come to an argument after two weeks in each other’s company, yet two months, or two years down the line, might tell a different story, and I didn’t want to see us end up in a blaze of fire.
Why
wouldn’t she just let me be, I asked myself again? I pushed the seat back and closed my eyes, but I totally failed to get any sleep at all on the journey until we were back over Germany and the cabin crew announcement snapped me out of my daze.

We stumbled off the plane and into the lounge, and spent a few minutes looking around ourselves, still trying to get Tokyo out of our heads and forget about the in-flight tensions.

“Well, I’m gonna grab a cab home,” she said eventually, and picked up her bags. “I assume you enjoyed yourself?”

I blinked; surprised she even needed to ask that question in such a probing way. “Of course, Honey. It was magical. I –
we’ll
have to do it again sometime.” I put my hands to her cheeks and drew her mouth to mine. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

We shared a brief kiss and then she pushed off towards the taxi ranks. I stared after her, wishing I could blame the hormones and tiredness for it all, and then decided I’d better get myself a cab, or a bus, too. I thought about Boris and Mrs. Groenenberg, the apartment and the Klub, but with total emotional detachment, as if they meant nothing to me at all any longer. Half of me wanted to be back in Tokyo. Half of me wanted to be back on the plane six hours ago, telling Honey ‘yes’ in answer to her question, and setting my mind, and my life, to rights so that I wouldn’t be standing there now feeling lost, alone, wounded and guilty.

I realized that those other things that no longer concerned me were of second importance to Honey. That was the only explanation – I cared for her more than I’d ever realized, or understood, or even admitted until now. The clarity split the clouds of my thoughts like lightning.

Abandoning my bags, I sprinted off as fast as I could towards the cab that she was in the process of getting into.

“Honey!” I yelled, “I’ll do it. I’ll move in with you!”

The car pulled away and disappeared down the road, leaving me standing there, red-faced and gasping as I stumbled to an ungraceful halt, feeling like a complete idiot to those who peered in my direction. I glanced back to check on my bags, and dragged my unwilling body over to collect them again. I had no idea if she’d heard me, but at least now my mind was made up and I knew where I stood. I felt suddenly elated again. I’d finally seen the light, and I had made my decision: I would be hers, for as long as she wanted me.

And those heavy bags felt so much lighter as I skipped across to the next cab in line.

After getting back home, I slept through the night and into the following day.

I turned up at the Klub that Saturday evening full of good spirit, hoping to catch up on plenty of news and gossip. It had also been two days since our last farewell, and Honey would surely have calmed down by now. Especially when I gave her my answer in person.

Bruno was, as usual for a weekend afternoon, leaning behind the bar as a few of the habitual drinkers lounged at the far end, nursing beers and bottles.

“Welcome back,” he sang as I walked in.