By the time I slip my shoes off and make my way to the couch in the dim light filtering in through the windows of the apartment, it’s after eleven. An hour in the hotel with Finn, an hour wandering around Shibuya, and another hour to get home and not a word from Finn. He hasn’t called or texted. I half-thought he’d be waiting for me outside the hotel or at the station, but there was no sign of him anywhere. I slide my phone from my back pocket before I lay down and glide my fingers over the smooth surface. Still nothing.
I still haven’t turned on any lights when I Skype Mindy, the laptop propped on my stomach. “Hey. What are you doing? I can’t see a damn thing.”
I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “Not yet. I just want to talk.”
Her voice changes, goes on alert. “Oh God. What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Finn and I had a fight. He walked out on me.” I haven’t cried. Not a single tear. I sat on that bed waiting for it, but nothing.
“About what?” Mindy’s got half her makeup done, so one eye looks dramatically wider than the other.
I don’t answer her. “Do you think people are predestined to be a certain way?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like if your mom has a bad temper, does that mean you’ll have one, too?” The example is a little closer to home than I intend, but Mindy gets it.
“Nature versus nurture, you mean? I think it depends.” She chews the end of an eyeliner pencil. “I mean, Liz is neurotic as hell, but I think that’s because of everything that happened. She wasn’t like that before.”
“But you’re not, even though the same thing happened to you.”
“I don’t think I have it in me. Not that I don’t care. It’s just different.” Mindy draws a line around her lower eyelid. “Is that what you two fought about?”
“More or less.” I shake my head. “My dad knows we’re in love.”
“Oh shit. Did you tell him?” She stops drawing. “And turn on the damn light so I can see you.”
I obey her this time and blink hard against the brightness. “No. He assumed.”
“Well, you’re not exactly subtle about it. I knew before you told me.” Which is true. She tried to get me to admit it, but I wouldn’t, not even to her. “So what are you going to do?”
“Do?”
Mindy rolls her eyes. “You had a fight. He walked out on you. What are you going to do?”
“He doesn’t think he’s good enough for me.”
“Is he?” One of the reasons I like Mindy is that she doesn’t always assume I’m right.
“He’s amazing.” The tears prick behind my eyes.
“You could text him and then back off?”
“He walked out on me, Min.”
“Because he doesn’t think he’s good enough for you. So you want to confirm that?”
“I’m not sure I could convince him if I shouted it from the top of Tokyo Tower.”
“Can you tell me why?” she asks. Another reason to love her. She understands confidences.
“No. I’m not even sure I know the whole story.”
“You’re not giving me a lot to work with here.”
“He thinks he’s bad. A bad person. Bad for me. You name it.”
“He’s not.” It’s a statement. Like she knows. And maybe she does. Finn and Mindy are alike in a lot of ways. What you see is definitely not what you get.
“No, he’s not.” My voice gets louder. “I mean, he’s no angel, but he’s not…I just…I wish he could see himself the way I see him.”
“So show him.” Mindy’s voice is gentle in comparison to mine.
“How?”
“I don’t know.” The eyeliner pencil goes back to her mouth. “Remember when I got in trouble for shoplifting? We were what? Fourteen? My parents sent us to my room while they talked to the police, and we looked at Seventeen like it was any other day. They called me down, and after I talked to them, I came back up and we went right back to ogling the guys in their ‘Hot Twenty Under Twenty.’ You didn’t ask how I was or what they said until way later. You just let me be. I think the only time I felt normal that whole year was when I was with you, your taste in boys aside.” Mindy smiles and I have to laugh. We disagreed on every single guy. That feels like a long time ago.
“My taste has clearly improved, but what does that have to do with Finn?”
“I decided that day you were going to be my best friend forever.”
“But I didn’t do anything.” I remember that day, too. I hadn’t known what to do. Much like now.
“Which is exactly what I needed. And when Todd Sullivan fucked me over you bought me He’s Just Not That Into You and forced me to read it. You know him, Zo. You’ll know what to do.”
She makes some gesture and either hangs up accidentally or the gods of cyberspace have decided I need to figure the rest out on my own. Regardless, we don’t call each other back, and I lay back on the couch with my phone on my chest in case Finn texts. My conversation with Mindy helped, even though it didn’t solve anything. Images float in my head, bits of conversation, moments. Finn. When I finally pick up my phone and tap out the letters, I erase the text five times before I press send.
I miss you.
I’m not sure it’s the right thing to say, but I at least expect a reply. A phone call or a text in return. Instead I get nothing.
Finally, at 2:30 in the morning, I run a bath because I can’t sleep. To be fair, I’m usually not asleep yet on a normal night, but I want this day over and done. I leave my clothes in a pile in the living room and sink into the steaming bath. For how lame the shower is, the bath is awesome. Deep and hot, I can stretch out with just my head exposed. I dip my head under and close my eyes.
The water’s cooling when the knock sounds at the front door. At first I’m not sure, but then it sounds again. I stand up too fast and have to steady myself against the wall because being in the hot water so long has made me dizzy. But that’s not why I don’t grab a towel. Or a robe. Or the crisp white yukata I bought last weekend hanging on the hook. I tread across the floor, dripping water everywhere. Naked.
I have the sense to peer through the peephole to make sure it’s Finn. I open the door and he walks in the living room and his eyes are deep and dark. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognize the cliché in me standing naked in front of him, but I don’t move. He takes in every inch of me. And I mean every inch. Until he looks away and I walk back to the bathroom and get my yukata from the hook. I’m still wet so the thin cotton sticks to me, and I leave it hanging open.
When I go back out, Finn’s opened the big sliding glass door and stands on the balcony leaning on the railing. The breeze billows the edges of the yukata away from my ribs like wings, and it flutters against his arm as I lean next to him.
I stare at the apartment building across the alley. There are only a few lights on, but the people directly across haven’t shut their curtains, and I watch the woman bounce a crying baby, the husband patting her shoulder, kissing her hair. She paces and bounces, rubbing the baby’s back, while the husband stands by the counter. His mouth moves occasionally, and she flashes a smile or two in between the shushing.
Finn watches them, too, and we both see them turn toward us at the same time. The wind has caught my yukata, and it alternately covers me like a shroud and billows like a cape behind me. I try to grab for it but I miss.
Finn doesn’t. He catches one side between his fingers and holds it while he reaches for the other. He’s got fistfuls of white in his hands, and he closes the foot between us, wrapping the edges around me as his hands rest on the small of my back.
The Japanese couple is still watching us. She looks confused, like she can’t really figure out what’s happening. Because I imagine it’s clear, even through the window, across the alley and over the language barrier that I don’t know what to do.
My hands stay at my sides, and my voice sounds small when I speak. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I see him swallow. “You shouldn’t be.”
“I am.” I bring my hands up, balled against his chest. I feel his heart beating. Or maybe it’s mine. My pulse hammers in every single nerve ending of my body right now.
“I shouldn’t have walked out on you.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed.” I flatten out one of my palms.
“I don’t remember the last time I was that angry.”
Angry isn’t the word I’d use, but I ask, “Are you still?”
He doesn’t answer, saying, “I walked around and thought about what you said. About saying goodbye.”
The air whooshes out of my lungs. “And?”
His arms tighten against my ribs, his words fast. “I went there that day I saw him with Lexy. My father. I don’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t what I got. I thought it meant something, that he gave me the ticket. For all I know, my mom bought it and said it was from him. She’s done shit like that before. Christmas presents. Birthdays. So I don’t feel bad. Or maybe so she doesn’t feel so bad that I’m stuck with him. Even if I never see him again, I’m stuck with him.”
The lights go off in the apartment across the alley, and we both turn toward the sudden dark. The father’s silhouette draws the curtains closed and I’m still looking at the white liner when I ask, “Do you think you will? See him again?”
“That’s what I thought about.”
I turn back to face him. Without the glow of the light from their kitchen, his eyes are blacker than normal. “And?”
He continues like I haven’t spoken. “Before I met you, I would’ve said no.”
“But now?”
“I think I have to.”
“To see for yourself.” My voice is low.
“What if I’m just like him, Zosia? And why don’t I know for sure?”
He doesn’t want me to answer, and I fight every instinct in me that wants to say, “You’re not.” Because I don’t know. I know what I want him to be, but it doesn’t make it so.
I reach my hand up to his face in the dark and stroke his cheek, tracing his lips. His arms loosen, and his hand grazes my neck and then my bare shoulder, down the length of my arm, back up over my thigh, my stomach, my breast. My robe falls open, and he pushes it out of the way until it’s a puddle around my feet. He pulls me into him and his mouth is hot on mine and I’m drowning in him.
I lose track of what happens next in what order. We’re on the balcony and on the living room floor and in my bed. I end up straddled across his lap, him slick and hard in my hand. It’s where we left off at the love hotel, but this time he thrusts into my hand and kisses me so hard I have to wrench myself away so I can breathe.
He buries his face in my neck. His hands clutch my ass tighter to him. “I love you so much, Zosia. So goddamn much.”
My hand tightens around him, and he bucks against it. I urge him on, stroking him faster. Harder. His stomach tenses and I know he’s close, but suddenly he lifts me off of him and hovers above me until the tip of his penis nudges against me. My eyes widen in surprise, but before I can think about that, he kisses his way down my body, his head stopping between my legs.
The first flick of his tongue sets off a cascade of sensations that explode at my core and reach to my toes. I gasp, and he does it again. I feel the beginning of my climax building already. I want it. I do. But there’s something I want more.
I ease out from under Finn’s hands, and it’s my turn to drape myself over him, kissing his lips, his neck, the hard muscles of his chest. I run my tongue over his stomach, nipping at his skin with my teeth, before moving lower.
His penis is reddish-purple, throbbing. It looks huge this close up, and when I run my tongue around the tip, I’m not sure I’m actually going to be able to take it in my mouth. I expect him to stop me. This is on his “no fly” list, too. He lets me taste him for another minute before pulling me up to kiss me. “You can’t do that for much longer,” he says roughly.
“Or what?” I ask, reaching between his legs with my hand.
He bites my shoulder. “Or I’m going to come all over you.”
I trail kisses down his chest. “Good.”
This time when I take him back in my mouth, he’s ready. I feel the desire building in him, like a rubber band stretching tighter and tighter. Until it breaks and he shudders, calling out my name loud enough to wake the sleeping baby across the alley.
When we finally lie still, the first light is rising, so it’s at least five. Finn’s fingers lace with mine, and he squeezes them.
“I think we need to wash the sheets.”
They’re damp with a combination of sweat and saliva and everything else. I roll off the bed, and he lifts the corner of the sheet when he gets up. There’s a wet spot on the pink futon underneath, and he winces.
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.” I walk out to the kitchen to throw the sheets in the washer, and he follows.
“Do you want a shower? I’m all over you.” He seems embarrassed, which is the last thing I expect. We’ve been engaged in this elaborate foreplay for weeks now and, granted, it’s usually not so intense, but it’s not something either of us have been embarrassed about.
“What’s wrong?” He opens his mouth, but I don’t let him speak. “Please don’t tell me you regret that or…”
He shakes his head before I can finish. “I don’t regret it.”
“What then?”
“I feel like I lost control.”
“Wasn’t that the point?” I ask, grinning.
“Was it?” He grins, too, but I can tell he doesn’t really mean it.
I wrap my arms around his neck. “It was my point.”
“Bad idea.”
“Good idea.” I’ll be damned if I let him ruin this. “Don’t you know how much I love seeing you when you forget who you think you are?”
He lifts me up onto the washing machine, and the way he kisses me and my legs wrap around his waist, I think for a second we’re going to have sex after all. Right there. I’m about to pull him into me, and I think maybe he’s going to let me because he’s that close.
Instead he draws away and leads me back to bed, where we kiss, so long and slow and tender it feels like everything beautiful in the world is here in this room.