I stroked his face gently, and gave up trying to deceive him. We were both in the same boat now.
“I didn’t think you’d notice. I never imagined you’d be able to smell him.”
“Are you going to leave me?”
I had no response to that.
“Oh god, I know you are. You’ll dump me like you dumped Leroy Jones,” he sobbed.
Like Leroy Jones.
I know how you feel, D.C. But what D.C. still didn’t know was that it was Leroy who was the cause of all our misery, the root of all our problems and for the first time I realized just how stupid I had been. And now we were both in pain, hurting in exactly the same way that Leroy had been hurt all that time ago.
I felt as though D.C. and I were gradually turning into the same kind of people, the kind of people I used to despise.
“Show me your hand, D.C.”
He stretched out a big, innocent hand and I gently wrapped both of mine around it. His skin was shining; it looked as though it might melt and dissolve into my own. It could never make my blood churn like Leroy’s hands did. Lifting it to my lips, I kissed it gently. D.C. flinched in surprise and pulled away from me.
“Let me hold it a little longer….” I pleaded.
But D.C.’s hands didn’t stick to me the way that Leroy’s did. They just seemed to rest on my skin, gauging my temperature. I closed my eyes at the futility of it all. We were both in the same sad, leaky boat.
“I love you, Ruiko. I really love you,” he whispered over and over, knowing it wouldn’t make any difference.
D.C. and I lay awake, huddled together, motionless. I had never seen him so quiet before, and when my eyes finally became accustomed to the darkness, I could see his dark, worried eyes staring back at me. But he didn’t hate me. He stroked his hand softly over my skin as if he were gently caressing velvet, and somehow he seemed to know that we were both suffering from the same pain.
“I could die happy like this,” I told him.
D.C. just smiled.
The white bedsheets gradually turned a dark, dusty blue and before dawn, as the night air coming in through the window began to get cooler, I greedily embraced sleep, grateful at last for the opportunity to abandon conscious thought and forget everything.
The next morning I woke to find that D.C. had already made coffee and was reading the newspaper. He drew up a chair for me and poured me a cup, and throughout breakfast he said nothing about what had happened the night before. He was carefully sticking to our usual morning routine. He seemed to have decided to ignore the problem, for the moment at least.
It was the first night I had slept well in quite some time, and I had dark circles under my eyes as a result. Holding my cup in both hands, I sipped my coffee. D.C. turned his attention back to the newspaper, but I knew he was only looking at the sports pages and the music column, so I didn’t bother to ask him what was new.
“Leroy Jones is doing a special concert.”
I was only interested in seeing Leroy alone. “So what?”
“It says that it’s a farewell concert. He’s going back to the States to make a new album.”
“Going back?”
I looked over at D.C., the cup gripped tightly in my hands.
“You’re kidding, right? Why does he have to go back to the States?
“Well, I suppose that when you’re in as much demand as he is, it’s not easy to take a long vacation like this. He probably has no reason to stay here any longer. I don’t think Japanese people like jazz that much.”
“I like it!” I said angrily.
“So you’re still interested in him? I didn’t think you cared about guys once you’d dumped them.”
D.C.’s voice faded to a murmur in the background. Leroy was about to disappear. But he couldn’t go yet! I hadn’t got what I needed from him. All he had done was take, take, take from me, and he hadn’t given anything in return. Bristling with fear, I desperately tried to think what I should do next.
D.C. tried to slip his hand inside my bathrobe.
“Cut it out!” I slapped at his hand in irritation.
But D.C. didn’t stop. He tore off my robe, kissed me all over, then carried me back into the bedroom to make love to me. I didn’t try to stop him. I just let him do what he wanted. My mind was occupied with far more pressing matters. How could I stop Leroy from leaving me? How-could I keep him within reach?
I showed up at Leroy’s apartment uninvited. He opened the door, and I when he saw it was me he had a defenseless look on his face, and I was obviously angry at being caught off guard. But I looked so pale and nervous that he invited me in anyway.
The room was much messier than last time, and there was a stale odor in the air, as if he had been sleeping and just woke up. The sheet music was all gathered together in a pile now, but in its place, his dirty underwear and crumpled shirts lay strewn around the room. In the ashtray was a mountain of cigarette butts, and on the bed the blankets were piled high like the whipped-cream topping on a dessert. A tangled mess of bedsheets was screwed up suspiciously and thrown over them.
Leroy handed me a glass of white wine. I suppose I must have looked quite ill, but the cool aroma of the wine seemed to neutralize the stuffiness in the air. He sat on the piano stool, wearing nothing but a navy blue bathrobe, and looked me over as he thoughtfully stroked the stubble on his chin. It was obvious that he hadn’t taken a shower that morning, and I was flustered by his unkempt appearance; I imagined a film of dried sweat covering his body.
Neither of us spoke. Leroy went over to the record player and chose a record to play. It was only when he had turned his back that I was able to find my voice again.
“You’re going back to the States?”
Bud Powell started playing, but Leroy said nothing.
“I hear you’re going back to the States,” I repeated.
“You gonna miss me?”
I slapped him hard across the face instead of saying, Yes, I am. Leroy grinned. But it was more of a smirk than a smile. You fucker!
I flew at him in a fury, my arms flailing, but he dodged me nimbly and I ended up in a heap on the floor, lying on my back. I looked up at him.
His foot was resting on my stomach and he was looking down at me.
“You just don’t understand, do you?” he sneered coldly, the heel of his bare foot pressed hard into my stomach.
His foot was big, cold, and heavy. It was like being tortured with a brick, and I was scared of what he might do if I struggled so I kept very still.
Leroy pulled my skirt up with his foot and pushed his toes inside my flimsy panties. His big toe buried itself into my soft pussy lips and I moaned loudly. Then, pushing harder, it sank deep inside me.
“I’ll light your fire, all right,” he said viciously, “just like you told me to in the park that night.”
Christ, I hated him.
Then, removing his foot from my underwear, he brought it up to my face and thrust his big toe forcefully into my mouth. It was warm and wet, and tasting myself on his toe, I felt a sense of betrayal, almost as though I’d been forced to reveal a precious secret.
“You must feel pretty frustrated that you can’t get the same kind of satisfaction from your mouth that you can from your pussy.”
Oh, but I could. And my satisfaction came from being able to say,
“No.” Venomously, I bit his toe, but Leroy just pulled his foot away and kicked me in the face, then stood on my neck to stop me from moving. I couldn’t breathe and I began to feel faint. I thought he was going to kill me, but I didn’t struggle. I just lay there with my eyes closed.