I rang the doorbell, and there was no answer, but I could feel Spoon on the other side of the door begging for my help. Once, when I had been a homeless teenager, Maria had given me the key to her apartment.
Now I used that key to silently unlock the door, and I pushed it open.
Spoon lay on the bed in the corner of the large, loftlike room. He half sat up. Maria’s long hair, like seaweed, spread out from between his legs, and each hair seemed poised to turn into a wriggling Medusas snake. Peeping through the hair were sharp, gold-polished fingernails.
She looked up quietly.
“Come over here, Kim.”
I walked over and looked at them both lying there. Spoon’s body, glistening black, looked like sweet, mouthwatering chocolate. And that was all. That was what I had been running around Tokyo like a crazy woman to find. But for me, it was worth it.
Why? Since when? Who started it? So many w questions cam crowding up into my throat, all trying to get out at once. I could feel all those battling it out inside me; it felt like a scene from an American cartoon. Now that was funny—I was a comic heroine! I wondered if maybe I should just throw my head back and start laughing at myself.
Maria glanced at me sideways, picked up the gown from beside her, and put it on. I just stood there, my lip curled.
“You made me do it,” she said.
I just stood and stared at her. I couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. If it had been in a book with notes, I would have skipped straight to the last page for the explanation.
“This is all your fault, Kim.”
She thrust the words at me as if to say, Have you had enough? Or do you want some more?
My lips felt dry and I tried desperately to moisten them.
“What are you talking about? I don’t know what you mean. You just met me with Spoon by accident. And then, before I knew what was happening, you stole him! You conniving bitch!”
It was the first time I had ever called her a bitch. Any respect I had for her was gone.
“I didn’t steal him from you.”
“Yes, you did! He’s mine!”
I suddenly realized that all of the satisfaction I got from being dominated by Spoon was actually the satisfaction of owning him.
“And you are his, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, there you go then.”
“Huh?” I was lost. She always had that effect on me.
I stared at her. Her eyes looked as heavy as if they’d had golden wine poured into them, wine that had been aged in a cellar for a hundred years. I had always been intoxicated by them; they reminded me of my own ugliness. I’d always asked her to check out the men I was seeing he-cause I didn’t think I was smart enough to judge for myself. She had taken care of me since I had been on my own, and I’d always trusted her completely.
Then, when I met Spoon, he had replaced Maria. I was too ignorant and too unsure of myself to go it alone, wavering unsteadily like seaweed in the ocean; I always needed someone to tell me what to do.
Maria stared back at me. I felt strangely calm. There was a song I used to sing about a girl whose boyfriend cheated on her. I got all worked up, imagining how she felt. The idea of her agony and her beautiful expression made me cry. She must have felt like her whole body would dissolve into tears that would just wash away. I cried tears of pity for that poor, heartbroken girl. I had never had a man stolen from me before. My love for every man I knew had snuck out the back door long before someone else could take him from me. And Maria would whisper quietly to me over and over again that that was the way things were, and eventually I would forget all about it.
Now I was the one who had been tricked, and I felt like the girl in the song, but I didn’t start singing any blues. I just stood there like I was bound hand and foot, and was watching TV. It seemed like all my emotions had been frozen.
“I don’t know the meaning of anything anymore. I sure don’t know the meaning of love,” I said.
“That’s because you’re in the middle of it.”
What the hell was she talking about? If anyone was in the middle, it was Spoon.
I could tell he was scared by the way we were talking about it so calmly, no shouting, no fuss.
And suddenly I felt sorry for him. For the past few days he had had a look on his face like he was going to do something dangerous. But now he just looked awkward and embarrassed. So what had that serious expression been for? I was so frustrated, I felt like stamping my feet. I knew that if I asked him how he felt about all of this, he’d just say something lame like, Hey, it’s no big deal.
But it was important to me. Even if, maybe, to this cheap whore of a man (Now how did I come up with a phrase like that?) it was just a fling.
But I had adored Maria and had even dreamed of being her lover. I didn’t want to believe that an affair with her could ever be a shallow thing—I wanted it to have some deep meaning.
“You’re in the middle,” she repeated.
“Just lay off, will you?” I said, beginning to cry.
“Hey, baby, don’t cry.”
“Kim, my darling, don’t cry.”
Their voices overlapped.
“I love you, Kim.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. This woman, who I had worshiped for so long, was saying words I’d never expected to hear. But it was too late. I had already stopped loving her.
“I’ve always loved you. There has never been anyone else.”
Now that she said it, I knew it was true. She really did love me deeply.
Far more than her hats and her rings, or her men.
“I love everything that has anything to do with you. I want to know everything there is about you. Since you’ve met this guy, you never come around anymore. I don’t care if you leave me in a corner and forget all about me; just let me watch you. I can’t bear being shut out like this. Do you know how hard it’s been because I couldn’t tell you how I felt?”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“If I had, you would have dumped me. You’re always like that. If something starts to demand your attention, you end up hating everything about it.”
She was probably right, I would have ended up hating her. Especially if I’d met Spoon after hearing that.
“Besides, if I had told you, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. I would have eaten you alive, even your bones.”
I realized then that her love for me was the same as my love for Spoon.
I often felt the violent urge to sink my teeth into him down to the bone.
“I wanted to satisfy my hunger with this man. I can still smell you on his penis.”
I was lost for words, but Maria continued. “I’m going to just forget all about today. I’m never putting myself in this position again. And I never want to go through the embarrassment of telling someone I love them again. Next time I fall in love it will be with someone who doesn’t need to be told.”
Maria put her hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs. To love and to cry were equally humiliating for her. I was suddenly grateful to myself for my total lack of patience.
“Maria, Spoon doesn’t belong to me. But I probably belong to him.”
“What could make you say that? He’s just a man, that’s all. He’s got nothing. Just a man. How could you?”
“He’s my man.”
She put her head in her hands and sighed. “Well, is that so important?”
“Don’t forget, I don’t have anything, either. I’m just a woman.”
“Get out. Please, just go now.”
I left them there in the room together, and left with my head spinning, full of thoughts about how we all fall crazily in love, but each in our own way.
When I got back to my place, a pang of hunger reminded me that I hadn’t eaten for two whole days. I was exhausted, far too tired to cook, so I just sat down with a bowl of cereal and milk. The cornflakes got stuck in my throat.