“Keep this up, and you’ll be one of us soon enough.”
Yes. Something along those lines.
Hashiba’s mind was elsewhere. The sensation his fingertips had encountered was a familiar one, and the memory caused his enthusiasm to suddenly wane. His erection withered, just as Saeko’s juices also ceased to flow.
Since Hashiba’s transformation was more visible, he had more difficulty accepting what had happened. For a while he refused to give up, but it soon became clear that his efforts were in vain.
“It’s all right.” Saeko took his hand in hers and whispered softly into Hashiba’s ear, encouraging him to relax. Saeko thought she knew why his ferocious erection had wilted so suddenly. When he’d encountered the lump, the thought of breast cancer had dampened his libido. His concern for her health suggested that he cared about her. Viewed in that light, it was a welcome reaction.
Saeko was only half-right, and a long ways away from the depths of Hashiba’s thoughts.
She took Hashiba’s hand in hers and guided it back to the lump. “It’s probably mastitis, I think. I’ve been meaning to have it checked, but I’ve been so busy …” As she spoke, she stroked Hashiba’s head with her other hand.
“You should really at least have it checked.” Hashiba flipped over, facing upwards, and held Saeko’s hand as he stared vacantly at the ceiling. The dimmed lights illuminated the bedroom softly. Hashiba’s flaccid penis remained trapped in the elastic band of his briefs, and Saeko’s nipples were now soft as they peeked out from underneath her shifted bra. Suddenly conscious of their awkward state of undress, neither of them moved for several moments.
Once he’d regained his composure, the question that had baffled Hashiba earlier resurfaced in his mind: Why does she live in a place like this?
He asked, “So what did your father do, anyway?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m interested.”
Saeko twisted her body sideways, peered at Hashiba’s face, and whispered, “Will you stay with me tonight?” Her question seemed to suggest that she wouldn’t mind telling Hashiba about her father but that she didn’t want him to leave when she was done.
Hashiba didn’t answer immediately. He paused, glancing at the clock on the bedside table. “Sure,” he agreed after a moment.
Why had he hesitated? Saeko wondered what the brief pause signified. If he were single, wouldn’t he have answered immediately? If he were married, on the other hand, he was more likely to take a longer time answering while he thought up an excuse to give his wife or a reason to decline the invitation. The implication of a slight pause was harder to glean and Saeko wasn’t sure what to think.
“Are you married?” she ventured, cutting straight to the chase. For all of her apprehension and worry, when the time came, she found it easy enough to ask the question.
She did try to sound as offhanded as possible, but her body language told a different story. She gripped the sheet tightly in both fists, and she gazed fixedly at Hashiba, as if pleading for salvation.
Hashiba met her gaze, but he pulled back ever so slightly. “No. I’m single.”
His tone was resolute, with no hint of falsehood. Saeko had no intention of interrogating him further. The reality of his pronouncement sank in slowly, filling her with a mixture of relief and happiness. Suddenly, she became aware that tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes, and she blotted them furtively against the sheet so that Hashiba wouldn’t notice.
Thank you. She sent a message of gratitude not to Hashiba, but to whatever being had granted her prayers.
Saeko retrieved two pairs of pajamas by the wardrobe next to the bed and handed one to Hashiba. Her relief had left her pleasantly sleepy. After a few more words of conversation, they both drifted off into sleep, their breathing deep and even.
After a while — Saeko had no idea how long — she felt herself briefly awaken. Instinctively she reached out to make sure Hashiba was there. Relieved, she was about to fall back asleep when she heard voices coming from the other room.
They were coming from the television set, that much was clear. There was nobody else on the same floor, after all. She must have left it on in the living room. She had a habit of switching the TV on the moment she got home and entered the living room, so it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary. On the other hand, she had no memory of turning it on that night. Perhaps she had hit the remote control as she had stumbled into the room, locked in Hashiba’s passionate embrace?
The room was quiet now except for Hashiba’s deep, even breathing. The heavy sash windows completely insulated them from the sounds of the city outside, as if they were floating in a gigantic underwater capsule. The faraway sound of the television chatter seemed like bubbles floating up to the surface from the bottom of the ocean.
Each time a bubble burst, Saeko could hear the words. The snatches of conversation were disjointed and hard to comprehend, but as she pieced together more of the fragments she came to understand that the broadcast was about an emergency situation of some sort.
But before an alarm bell could sound in Saeko’s mind she had drifted back to sleep.
There was just one locked door at the penthouse where Saeko lived.
Saeko and Hashiba woke up at the same time, just after seven the next morning. When Hashiba asked Saeko about her father once more, she took a key from the bedside table and led him to the door of the locked room.
She had sealed it off when she had married and her husband had moved in. After their divorce, it hadn’t occurred to her to unlock it. The spacious 500-square-meter flat included the living and dining rooms and six bedrooms. Keeping one of the rooms locked made it easier to keep up with the cleaning.
The quickest way to explain who Saeko’s father had been to Hashiba would be to show him this room. The sleeves of her baggy pajamas were so long that they extended past her fingertips as she held up the keychain with a single key attached and waved it slowly in Hashiba’s view.
“This was my father’s study.”
“You keep it locked?”
“My ex-husband wanted it that way.”
“Why?”
“It bothered him, I guess — having my father’s presence intrude on our lives. So he wanted me to keep it locked. That’s what he said, anyway.” Saeko twirled the key around her finger like a gunman spinning a revolver.
Perhaps her marriage would have lasted longer if they’d moved to a new place. Her husband had proposed it a number of times. He’d often complained that the apartment possessed a creepy atmosphere that was hard to describe. But Saeko couldn’t leave behind the home where she had lived with her father. It would have required her to admit that he wasn’t coming back.
“That’s weird. There’s something abnormal about you two.” You two, he’d said, pointing at Saeko. He was referring to Saeko and her father, of course. As far as Saeko was concerned, her ex-husband had been the strange one. But looking back on it now, perhaps she and her father really had been abnormal.
More than anything, she didn’t want Hashiba to feel that way about her.
“I guess I can understand that,” Hashiba mumbled, half lost in thought.
Saeko was in the midst of unlocking the door when he spoke. She froze and turned to look at him, mistaking his comments as an expression of sympathy for her ex-husband. “Why is that?” she demanded.
“Well, sometimes our sense of a person is even more striking in their absence. It sort of relates to the disappearances we’ve been investigating,” he answered.