A Woman's Nails (35 page)

Nekko-chan bought two
Corona
s, then taking me by the hand led me out of
Umie
and onto the crowded street. I sat down on the hard corner of a large concrete planter
, overgrown with weeds
.

Nekko-chan hiked her dress up and, straddling me, revealed thighs so white the blue veins shown through the ivory veneer of her skin. I put my hand on her knee, traced the skin up and under the skirt the edge of her panties. Following the line downward with my thumb, I found a few hairs and toyed with them.

She tapped my arm, saying, “
Dah-mé
,
dah-mé
.”

Having been on second base, sucking each others faces dry, for, I checked my watch,
well over
an hour, I was eager to round third and steal home.

“
Ah,
zannen
,” I replied. What a pity.

“
Mah-da, mah-da
.”

Not yet? What was that supposed to mean? Not yet, tonight? Not yet, here on the pavement? Not yet
,
in this lifetime?

She asked again me if I loved her.

“I do.”

“
Nande
?”

“Because, you're my B
luebird
of Happiness.”

Corny as it was, it was the truth. Thanks to Nekko-chan, I was able to stop thinking about Mie for once. Kissing her was a far stronger anesthetic than the alcohol I had been drowning in all these months. Nekko-chan kissed me on the lips and hugged me so tight I nearly fell off the planter.

“
I love you, too, . . .
Namae wa nani deshtakke
?”
(
What was your name again
?)

“Peador.”

“
Pay-doh-roo
?”

“
Hai, Pay-doh-roo
.”

“
I love you, too,
Pay-doh-roo
,
demo . . .
”

“But what?”

She brushed the
hair
from my eyes, kissed me
tenderl
y on the nose and said, “We can’
t date.”

“
Nande
?”

“
Gaijin dakara
.”

“
Because I’
m a
foreigner
? Nekko-chan, to me
you’
re
the
gaijin
.”

I suppose it could have hurt to be told such a thing, but then I knew where she was coming from. Even Mie had worried
that people would consider her
a
“yellow cab”
for dating a
gaijin
. Besides, I wasn’t really pinnin
g my hopes on Nekko-chan being T
he One. A Pentecostal moment with her naked and screaming in tongues above me, however, would not have been a bad consolation.

But, therein lay the rub. How was I going to whisk Nekko-chan off my lap and into my
futon
? It may not have been the Bataan Death March back to my apartment, but it was still quite a hike back, especial
ly for a woman in heels. I didn’
t have the mo
ney for a cab, let alone for a “rest”
at one of the love hotels nearby. And, like most good Japanese girls, even those who drink themselves silly in bars and pick up the first warm
gaijin
they meet, Nekko-chan, I
assumed lived with her parents.

I asked if she did and she nodded her head. So, there would be no going back to her rabbit hutch, either.

Still, what with me being mad out of it, and Nekko-chan sloppy with the drink, I was determined to get her back to my miserable little apartment, even if I had to piggy-back the girl the whole damn way.

“
Uchi ni konai ka
?”
I asked. (
Wanna come back to my place
?)

“
Iya
.”

“No?” I asked again, but she was dead set against it.

Well, th
at didn’
t work, and neither would trying to ply her with more alcohol; Nekko-c
han was full as a boot already.

She dropped her
Corona
, the bottle crashing against the pavement and sending shards of glass and foam everywhere. As we were standing up to go back into
Umie
she knocked over a bicycle. When she stopped abruptly to hug me in front of the bar, she bumped into a scooter, sending it rolling slowly off the curb a
nd toppling into the street. No
, another drink was a
not a good
idea: it would only have her scurrying off to the jakes, genuflecting before the porcelain altar, rather than getting down on her knees before me.

So, we ventured back into
Umie
, back into the darkness, back into the noise. But, rather than ascend the steps and return to the counter, we parked ourselves on the lower level, just off the small dance floor, in a darkened corner which promised to conceal our affections better than the fluorescent brightness of the beer cooler had.

Nekko-chan dragged a stool over, and patted the seat. Once I sat down on it, I lifted her light body up, and set her down on my lap. Then, brushing the soft black hair away, I kissed her forehead. I kissed her small nose, her cheeks, her lips, and nibbled at her lovely slender neck.

Blame it, if you like, on the courage of the alcohol that was coursing though my veins, or humor me by accepting that a man could be so enamored of the beauty of
a
woman in his arms as to blindly stretch the taunt ligaments of propriety until they snapped. Had it been any other night, with any other girl, anywhere else on this whirling merry-go-round of ours, I doubt I would have done what I did that night with Nekko-chan on my lap in a dark corner of
Umie
. Spreading her legs slightly, I moved my hand tenderly up her leg until I touched her panties.

Women have a way of letting you get within a diving chance of home before they come to their senses and tag you out, ending the game without a run. I expected the same from Nekko-chan. But, rather than push my hand away, she spread her legs further. Leaning back, and tilting her lovely face upward, she opened that wonderfully broad mouth of hers and sucked me in. And, so that I would not misinterpret the cabbalistic nuances of the female language, she grabbed onto my family jewels and began buffing away.

Gauche from excitement and drink, I tugged clumsily at her panties, as you do, managing to yank them with the delicacy of a blitzkrieg over her small bottom, down to ju
st above her knees.

Nekko-chan adjusted herself on my lap, and invited me to venture further into her garden, to pick the flowers, so to speak.

There beyond the gates, the soil was in good tilth, fertile and wet. Running my hands through it like a furrow, a tremor rocked
through
her body. I removed my hand and inhaled her fragrance on my fingers. Nekko-chan took my hand, and with a seductive purr, motioned for me to continue.

Hidden among the dewy folds of sepal and calyx was her flower, a lovely little daisy. I plucked one of the petals, producing a moan. She loves me. Plucking another, she answered with silence. She loves me not. I plucked again and Nekko-chan's mouth parted as if to say something,
but produced a heavy sighing, “
Nya~o
.”
She loves me. She loves me. She loves me.

With her head leaning back all they way against the wall, I watched the expressions on her pretty little face. The eyes were half open and turned up, nothing but white staring at me. Her broad mouth opened wider, and a whimper emanated past quivering lips. I continued to work at it, and as I did her body grew increasingly rigid until, exhaling one last time with a deep moan
, she
wilted in my arms.

When I stopped, her eyes cracked open, slowly and unsurely, as if she were emerging from a deep sleep. She looked forlornly into my eyes, and after a moment kissed me tenderly. Then, taking my hand, the hand that had given her so much pleasure, she kissed it, licking each finger one at a time, all the way down my palm and to my tired wrist, kissing my hand as it had never been kissed before. Then, taking my sweating face into her small hands, she kissed me good-bye.

6

It kills me that I forgot t
o get Nekko-chan's number or
give her mine. I returned to
Umie
the next night and the following, came again last night and am here for the fifth time in a week pissing
my
salary away one cheap drink at a time hoping
she would
reappear and b
ring a little happiness my way.

Wher
e the Devil are ya, Nekko-chan?

I’
ve never spoken much with
Umie
’s bartenders. Don’
t care much for the guys, to be honest, what with the way they stand behind the counter preening themselves like
exotic birds
. They wouldn
’
t know service if it came up and spat in their pretty faces. Still, I crawl through the mutual indifference that lies between
us like a craggy, barren no-man’
s land and ask them whether they h
ave seen Nekko-chan. They haven’t, but they’
re happy I ask because it gives them the opportunity to poke a little fun at me rather than merely ignore me as they have all week.

Growing up like I did with six older brothers and sisters, you develop a high tolerance for pain, and a Teflon coating. Jokes played at your expense
don't usually stick. So, I don’
t take the teasing seri
ously the way a pantywaist or an only-
child might. I smile when they kid me, laugh heartily at my own expense. I even inflate my chest with pride when they call me a
playboy, but deep down I’
m in pain.

“
Play with girls,
”
Shinobu
had
advised. I did and
,
for a few heavenly hours
, I managed to forge
t all about Mie, t
he loneliness and the longing. But, t
he nail
that
was
soundly driven into her coffin popped right back up, and
just
like a strong anesthetic wearing off
, I
now
ache more than before.

The boys behind the bar continue to laugh and mimic the way Nekko-chan and I
were groping
each other. They have no idea what going through my mind as I try hard to get drunk, try to numb my emotions, so I can pretend to be the ladykiller they have work
ed me out to be. And now that I’
ve drunk more than ten bottles of
Heineken
, one after the other, like a chain smoker sucking on fags, I finally give up on
ever seeing
Nekko-chan
again. I get up and
leave
Umie
.

The weekend will soon be over with little to show for it save a hangover, a heavier heart and a lighter wallet.

“Peador, the playboy walks home,” I say to myself. “Sometimes, it’
s best to give the poor girls a br
eak and spend some time alone.”

Another night sleeping on an empty futon stained with sweat and thin from humidity.

“The playboy walks home,”
I mumble to myself.

The frustration and loneliness is unbearable. Tears gather at my eyes, my chest tightens, my footsteps drag. As much as I wan
t to cry and cry and cry, I can’
t. If only I could wail all the way back through that bleak tunnel-like walk home, to drop to my knees an
d sob, sob until I fell asleep . . .

Ahead of me, a
drunk
middle-aged man plies a hazardous course
towards
my direction. His gray suit is unbuttoned and hanging loosely on his thin frame, his white shirt
is
untuck
ed in the front,
the
necktie askew.

He pauses before a concrete block wall encircling the dreary offices of the Ministry of Justice, and
,
bracing himself against it with one hand
,
lowers his head and vomits
ramen
onto his
own loafers
. He coughs a few times, vomits again, then foosters his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. He drops the handkerchief to the ground and resum
es
a
wildly
weaving path towards me.