“No, maybe it’s not convenient,” she said. “I mean, not quite. It all depends on what you have in mind. I’m alone, attractive. Okay. Well, that leaves me on the spot. If you’ve got the nerve.” She hesitated, leaning forward. “Have you got any?”
“Nerve? No use asking me,” Aoyama said, twisting uncomfortably in his chair.
“If you try something, I won’t yell. Not at all. If that’s what’s worrying you,” she said contemptuously. “At least not until you’re at it. And then it’ll be strictly because I’m enjoying it. Just pleasure, that’s me.” She winked. “I want it, plenty.”
She was looking at him through half-closed eyes, long eyelashes, and she sent him a dreamy smile. He knew now that he’d never forget her. A clattering noise came from the backyard. A piece of corrugated iron moved in a gust of wind. She didn’t open her eyes for it, but cocked her head at the sound.
Aoyama knew what he was going to say and he said it: “Not a chance.” Then he shrugged meaninglessly. “I’m not interested in what you want,” he added, emphasizing each word.
She opened her eyes and fluttered her eyelids, and then her eyes were wide all of a sudden and brimmed with an exaggerated sincerity. “You don’t care what you say to a woman, do you?” She looked young and untroubled. She stuck her chin out, highlighting the oval shape of her face. “You think you’re tough.” Now her teeth were clenched.
“Right now, no.”
He felt his own pulse with two fingers, counted to himself, then reached for the pack of cigarettes, offered her one. She took it and fit it between her lips without opening her mouth. Her fingernails were the same color as the nails of her toes. Aoyama lit her cigarette, then his own. He sucked smoke into his mouth, filled himself up with the smoke and let it out between his teeth. The phone rang. This time she didn’t answer it. She exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked at him with nymphlike eyes.
The phone stopped ringing, the wind stopped blowing, and the piece of corrugated iron didn’t move or make a sound. He turned the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and made it disappear like a magician. It reappeared between his lips. He squinted as the smoke trailed upward.
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” she said, leaning forward with her elbows on the tabletop. “I’m telling you, I like it. I don’t want you to refuse the offer. But as long as you’re sure you don’t want me, I won’t make things any harder for you.” She winked.
He looked down at himself and saw that his erect cock was trying to push its way through his trousers. His eyelids got heavy. There was a tense silence. She eyed him hungrily. He looked away, turning his head as if it had an enormous weight. Then he narrowed his eyes and stared back at her.
She was leaning back in the chair and playing indifferently with the plum-colored silk drawn tight across her breasts. She gave him a peculiar smile, put her cigarette out in the ashtray.
“I guess I feel kind of responsible for you now,” she confided.
“That’s obvious.” He looked at the hill made by his erection. His head came up slowly, his eyes focused, and he said, “One of these days we’ll get together on it, but not today.”
“Not now, not ever.” She smiled cheerfully. “You’re not going to tell me you don’t want it, are you?”
She reached up and pulled the left shoulder strap down past her upper arm. Her skin was truly pale, lightly freckled, and it shone in a ray of sunlight which came through the window and spread out harmlessly on the kitchen table just for the occasion.
Aoyama raised his brows and sighed heavily. His lips were numb just watching her. She pulled the other strap down and her breasts were exposed. She opened her mouth, a sparkle in her eyes, then sat up straight in the chair.
A drop of sweat squeezed out of his forehead and ran down the plastic nose. Warm rays of sunlight splashed on his face. A drawstring pulled in his throat. He was being pulled into nothingness. The sky, no matter how blue it was, lost its importance. The sheet of corrugated iron shivered. The structure of purpose inside his head fell apart, all the measured elements dropped away from his professional grasp.
The woman held onto the edge of her seat with both hands, swung her feet back and forth above the floor like a child, then inched the chair forward, making a dull scraping noise.
“Do you get what I’m saying?” she asked.
It wasn’t really a question. He dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. The drawstring jerked in his throat. His false nose started to slip down, oiled by perspiration and encouraged by the weight of his glasses. His right hand came up to put them in place. He tried to think of something to say. Aoyama inclined his head.
She gave him the answer herself. She grabbed a nipple between two painted fingernails, thumb and forefinger, and pinched hard. A flush shot upward under the surface of her skin. Her other hand stayed where it was, resting on her ribcage, and her fingers gave the same nipple another pinch, and this time she pulled it agonizingly upward and away from her body. Her eyes were very hungry. Aoyama winced. He stared at her tormented breast, then looked at her hair as a violent reddish-blue cast swept through it, engulfing her head like flames. Now her eyes were lit with a strange fire the color of fresh cucumber.
Aoyama fumbled in his pockets looking for his cigarettes. He found the pack, flicked his wrist to knock a cigarette out of it, put the wrong end between his lips, abruptly turned it around in his mouth with the filter now pressed against the tip of his tongue. He leaned anxiously forward and lit it, took several short drags, balanced it unceremoniously on the rim of the ashtray.
Her skin looked like transparent paper, the bluish veins were at the surface, wriggling like snakes. Aoyama trembled from head to toe. He took up the cigarette and inhaled and exhaled quickly until it was halfway smoked, then frantically put it out. He pressed his teeth into his lower lip. All the time the woman had been watching him and now she burst out laughing.
“Do you see my position?” she asked.
“What position is that?”
She tilted her chair back on its two rear legs, raised her own legs one at a time and propped her bare feet on the edge of the table. She parted her legs, moving her knees outward, and slowly pulled the hem of her chemise from her thighs to her waist. She wriggled around a bit to arrange it just right. She wore a pair of shiny, plum-colored panties that stretched tight across her lower belly below her navel at her hips. The panties showed a spot of moisture where her labia seemed to breathe like the mouth of a large fish. A few wiry pubic hairs poked anxiously out of the nearly transparent fabric. Aoyama averted his eyes after he got a good look at her.
“That’s for you,” she said, pointing at the wet spot with an accusing finger. She thrust her face forward, eyeing him. “Now, what becomes of the body after death?”
Her question frightened him. He aimed a level gaze at her. “You’re not just leaking juice between your legs,” he said.
She placed a finger to her lips, meaning silence. She stuck out her tongue menacingly. Her eyes were sometimes green, sometimes yellow. He might have jumped up and fucked her if he didn’t know there was something wrong with her. She looked at him, pleading and reproachful. His cock strained against his trousers.
“You’re a lot closer to it than you know,” she said.
“To what, exactly?”
“Can’t you smell it?”
Aoyama furrowed his brow, looked sideways at her. She ran her second finger up and down the wet spot.
“Looks like the question gives you more trouble than it gives me,” she said.
“And what happens when you don’t get what you want?”
“You’ll find out.” She sat up straight in the chair, opened her legs. “Most people can’t even write their names properly when they get an eyeful of this.” She placed the palm of her hand over her pussy, then slapped it. “And you’re wasting your time talking.”