A Woman's Nails (37 page)

Though the effort
will prove
futile, it is nevertheless amusing to watch a woman give head for the first time.

Holding my cock in her thin, pale fingers, Tatami eyes it with caution and wonder. She lowers her head towards my erection, pauses for a moment as she deliberates whether or not to go through with it, and then, mustering all the courage her thin frame contains,
gives
Paddy a preliminary lick.

It has been nearly month since someone last fel
l
atiated me. Not long
for most men
, I suppose, but long enough to make Paddy stand at stiff attention, as if
he’s been
defibrillated back to life.

Tatami flinches and jerks quickly away, worried, I
can only
guess, that overwhelmed with ecstasy I might ejaculate right then and there. She lowers her head
again
, my cock twitch
es
. She hesitates. But once she is
reas
sure
d
that I wo
n
’
t spontaneously blow the contents of my
viscera
all over her face
,
she
takes
the head into her mouth and waits again. She has
n
’
t yet figured out that fellatio is something to be
performed
, not something which is going to just happen
all by itself
. I guide her head down until she nearly chocks on it,
and
let her come up gasping. I shove my cock back into her mouth, then guide it in gradually. Only then
does
she begin to
understand
that some movement
is
required.

She works at it for about thirty minutes,
up and down, up and down, and yet
never quite getting me to the station on time, always missing the train. After a while
,
I
’
ve had enough. I pull my cock out of her mouth, holster
it
,
and
zip
up
my pants.

Tatami protests at first, insists on her wanting to make me
“
feel good
”
, but I just wave her off. All I want is for her to leave so that I
can
have some
Q.T.
with
a girlie magazine and
the “Lascivious H
and” and go to bed
.

She
lie
s
on the floor
at my feet
. Her blouse is half open
,
revealing an
elaborate
pink brassier. She raises her white, boney arms towards me
and
beckon
s
me to join her. I
’m no
t interested. When she
raises her dress and
spread
s
her legs invitingly, I
turn and
look out the window into the dark night.

“
Who is the most important
person in your life?
”
she asks from the floor.

“
My sister
,
Siobhán
.
”

“
And then?
”

I know what she is playing at, so I decide to hav
e a bit of fun.
“
That's tough,
” I say. “
Maybe one of my closer friends
—
Andr
é
, Dave, Brad, Geoff, Rowland. I don't know."

“
And
then
?
”
Disappointment
rises
in her voice.

“
My brother
, Padraig
.
Yeah, probably my brother . . .
”

“
What about
me
?
”
she whines.
“What about
Tatami?
”

From the depths of
my
generous heart
,
I reply:
“
Tatami, don't whine. It drives me up the feckin
’
wall.
”

“
But what about
me
,
”
she asks again.

“
Look, Tatami, I like you.
Like
you.
I have always
liked
you, but I have never
love
d
you.
”

“
Why not?
”

“
Why not?
”
This
tickles
me and it is all I
can
do to restrain myself
, to keep from
bursting out and
laughing at
the woman
.

“
I want to be your girlfriend!
”

“
No!
”

“
Why
? Mie was your girlfriend. Why can't you love
me
?
”

That simple question threatens to dredge up a wealth of memories
and emotions
. I
don’t
really want to get into it. Not with Tatami.
She wouldn
’
t
begin to
understand.

“
Why can't you love
me
?
”

Why
can’t
I? Why couldn't I love Yu
mi
? Why couldn't I love Aya
,
or even
Reina
for that matter
? Why cou
ldn
’
t I love any of the women I
’
ve
met
over the past seven months
? Is my heart no longer capable of love? Was my love only meant for one person, and now that she is gone I
am
no longer able to love anyone
again
? I don
’
t want to believe
it.
I still have faith, however tarnished it may
be
, that I
will
meet someone I
can
love, but as far as I
can
tell this
half-naked
woman
at my feet
with her pale arms reaching out for me
will
never
be The O
ne
. She w
ill
never be
the more
I
have been
searching for. She w
ill
n
ever be
the enough
that Philip Roth wrote about in
The Professor of Desire
. She isn
’
t anything to me but a
nother
regret
at the end of a long string of regrets
. And
,
all I want from her now is to watch the wiggling of her
bony
little arse as she pads out the door and down the steps.

“
Why can't you love
me
?
”
she asks for the third time.

“
I
’
m sorry,
Tatami
, but you'
re not my type.
”

“
Hidoi
”
, she whimpers.
“
You're terrible!
”

A genuine tear collects at the base of her right eye, such a small tear, so cute, so
her
, that it make
s
me smile. Whenever Yu
mi
cried, the Self Defense Forces were put on alert, ready with bulldozers to act in case any innocent
bystanders
got
caught up in the relentless flow of gunk
that would r
u
n down those heavily concealed cheeks of hers
. But Tatami's tear,
a
solitary
tear
clinging
to the lower edge of her eyelid, gr
o
w
s
slowly in size, then rolls like a drop of mercury down her soft white cheek.

When the tear
falls
, I
giggle
at the novelty of it. I
’
ve never seen someone cry
in such a
controlled
manner
. I laugh again, but not out of cruelty, for I
don’t mean to be
cruel. I laugh at the silliness of
life. Sometimes that
’
s all you can do:
laugh to
help you forget how much pain you’re in.

Tatami reiterates her low opinion of me, but rather than decide that she is wasting her time,
she chooses
instead
to try
to
endear
herself to me by lunging for my cock. When that fails, she starts swinging at me, pitiful punches that fail to connect and serve only to frustrate her
even more
.
When
I wonder
aloud
if she was taught
these tactics
at finishing school
,
she kick
s me
.

It
is
just
too much
and I
start roaring
with laughter.

With great difficulty, I finally manage to push her towards the front door. She kicks and screams, her arms flail about wildly, and then just when I
’ve
got her halfway out the door, she
tells
me that she i
s pregnant.

“
Yeah, right!
”
I scoff and give her a final push out of the door.

As I
am
shutting the door on her, she threatens to quit the school and to tell everyone that I
am
the father of her child. She threatens
to follow me to America.

It
i
s pathetic and ugly. It is
kabuki
, very bad
kabuki
.

But then r
ealizing that her threats
are having
no
impact, Tatami
softens
her
tone
and
asks
,
“
What would you do if I died?
”
Tears
are
now steaming down her cheeks.
“
What would you do if I
died
?
”

“
Well, for one, I
’
d probably get to bed sooner.
”

“
Hidoi!
”
she screams and
runs down the stairs
.

I
listen to
the heels of her shoes strike against the
steps
as she hurries down the stairwell,
and
the
ground floor
gate
slam shut
.

“Good night, Tatami.”

17

YUMI

1

From late July until the start of the
Bon
Festival of the Dead in mid August, Yumi and I have been left behind to guard the fort while Abazuré
and Reina are in New Zealand. In the meantime, I ha
ve been entrusted to teach Reina’s junior and senior high school students.

It ha
s been an uninspiring two weeks, to say the least, but has had the merciful
blessing
of my not having to show up for w
ork until four in the afternoon. This means
that no matter how enthusiastically I
“
celebrate my Irish
identity”
the night before,
by the time I have to punch
in
my hangover has
usually
been tamed
with copious amounts of
Pocari Sweat
and aspirin
.