And then we were just holding each other and laughing and my back hurt because it was awkward leaning into her from the bench but I didn’t care, in a weird way it felt good. And then, all of a sudden, she stiffened and pulled back and said, “Oh, no, oh shit oh no.”
I’d been in such a reverie, I felt like I’d been slapped. “What? What is it?”
She glanced down at her lap and tried to cover it with her hands, but couldn’t. She’d peed. Not just peed, she was still peeing, and couldn’t stop it. She shook her head in helpless humiliation.
I jumped up. “Oh, let me get you someplace!”
“Just get me home.”
“Shouldn’t we—”
“Just get me home.”
“But I told you, it doesn’t—”
“Just get me home!”
I wanted to say something, to tell her it didn’t matter, I didn’t care, but I couldn’t think what to say. I felt awful. I realized I needed to piss, too — we’d been sitting out there for a long time.
And then I got a crazy idea. I started to rethink it, then thought, Fuck it, what do you have to lose?
I took a deep breath and just let my bladder go.
“Take me home, okay?” she said. “Now.”
“Okay, just one second, I’m having a little problem myself.”
She looked at my crotch, at the darkening pool of liquid running down my leg.
She shook her head incredulously. “What are you fucking doing?”
“You think I’ve never pissed my pants before? The first time I got dropped in Indian country I did. Hell, I know guys who shit themselves. Tough guys, guys it would be death to mess with. It’s just nobody likes to talk about it.”
Her mouth was agape. “I don’t believe you’re doing this.”
“What, you think you’re the only one who can? Why shouldn’t I get some relief, too?”
She put her head in her hands and started shaking. I thought she was crying, but then I realized she was laughing. She looked up at me and shook her head. “You’re crazy. You are really crazy.”
I looked at the dark spot on my pants and we both started cracking up. It was medium intensity at first, but then it just built and built. At one point, she took two quick breaths and got it under control just long enough to say, “That was…the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me,” and we were both hit with another paroxysm.
When the laughter finally started to ebb, I said, “Maybe I should get us back to the van. We’ll roll down the windows.”
We laughed again and I pushed her back along the path. I can’t say it felt good to walk with urine sloshing in my shoes, but on the other hand at least I didn’t still need to take a leak.
Back in the van and heading east, she said, “Thank you, Jun. Really, thank you.”
“I told you, it’s nothing. It doesn’t bother me.”
“I’m lucky, actually. The injury to my spinal cord isn’t complete. A lot of people need a catheter, but I don’t. But I have to be careful not to wait too long. I haven’t had a problem in a long time, but it’s still something I’m always afraid of. And tonight, I think getting excited…I’m sorry.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror, but it was dark in back and I couldn’t see her. “You don’t have one thing to apologize for,” I said. “Not one.” Then I added, “Wait, did you say you were excited?” And we both cracked up again.
Once we were in Uguisudani, she gave me directions to her apartment. I parked and opened the back of the van, and she rolled down to the pavement.
“So this is the place?” I asked. It was a soulless five-story ferroconcrete building, pretty new looking. Drab, but no more so than the one I lived in. Or used to live in. I wasn’t exactly sure of my status.
“Yeah. No stairs, see? Straight shot between here and the elevator.”
“You want me to come up?”
She paused. “I don’t know, we both need to clean up…”
“Oh, listen, if I come in, cleaning up is a requirement. Is there a bath?”
“Yeah, that’s half the reason I chose it, it’s new and the units all have their own baths. Back and forth to the sentō everyday would be a nightmare.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“What are you going to change into?”
I patted my bag. “I have a change of clothes right here.”
“I wondered why you’re always carrying it.”
“I just don’t have anywhere to leave it. No fixed address at the moment and all that. So…can I come up?”
I could tell she was nervous. But she said, “Okay.”
She lived on the second floor, a neat, functional 1K apartment — what in America would be known as a studio. A single bed on a platform, unlike the usual Japanese futon on the floor. Obviously easier to get in and out of. A kitchen table with no chairs. A tiny television. A nice stereo. That was about it.
We took our shoes and socks off in the genkan, but my feet were still moist with piss. “I should wipe my feet before I come in,” I said. “Do you have any towels?”
“Yeah. Hold on.” She wheeled herself in, pulled a towel out from a cabinet, and set it down on the floor. I stepped onto it. Fortunately, my pants had stopped dripping, but a bath and a change of clothes would be a welcome development.
Without thinking, I said, “Take a bath with me.”
“What? Jun, no.”
“Hey, it’s just to get clean. I have nothing but good intentions.”
She laughed a little nervously. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“I…I don’t know you.”
“Yes, you do. You know me better than a lot of people.”
She looked down. There was a long pause. She said, “I don’t want you seeing my body. My legs.”
“We can turn off the light.”
“You don’t understand. They’re like…little rubber sticks. They just hang off my body.”
“You think if I see your legs, I won’t be attracted to you?”
She nodded. Christ, she looked so honest, and so ashamed…it made my heart ache.
I knelt in front of her and took her hands in mine. “Sayaka. That’s not going to happen.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Come with me,” I said. “It’ll be dark. We’ll soap up and rinse off and then we’ll sit in a warm tub and I’ll kiss you and hold you like we were doing at Kitazawa-gawa. And we won’t do anything else if you don’t want to. Okay?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know.”
“Okay?”
There was a long pause. Finally, she said, “Let me get in first.”
She disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the water come on, and then the light went off. A few minutes later, she called out softly, “Okay.”
I walked over to the bathroom door. I could see her in profile. She was leaning forward, her arms across her breasts. Japanese baths are typically part of an integrated shower room — an enclosed space with a tub on one side and an equally large area for showering alongside it. This makes it easier to shower and get clean before getting in the tub, which is a requirement in Japan and, in my opinion, in all other civilized places, as well. I’ve never understood the idea of soaking in a tub full of the grime floating off your body. On the other hand, a half hour earlier, I had deliberately pissed my own pants, so maybe my opinion on these things shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Anyway, Sayaka had left the chair in the shower area alongside the tub, her clothes piled under it. I realized she would do her showering in the tub — it would be easier sitting in the tub itself, and also left the shower area for the wheelchair. And indeed, there were handles installed in the walls and a rope pulley dangling from the ceiling, all obviously designed to make her passage to and from the tub easier. To make it possible at all.