Bedtime Eyes

by Amy Yamada

  I poured my glass of pina colada on the floor. It was a large glass, full to the brim, so the floor was awash with the milky-white liquid, which lay in a thick, wet pool on the shiny wooden boards. I stood up and began taking off my clothes.

  / o 6 A M Y Y A M A D A

  The room was filled with the heady aroma of coconuts. Leroy was already drunk. I sat down, naked, on the freshly poured cool, white sheet. A sliver of ice touched my hot skin. It felt good. I looked over at Leroy. He was kneeling down, staring at me, completely fascinated. He knew what I wanted. I felt as though my skin were soaking up the sweet alcohol like blotting paper.

  "Hurry, or my pussy will be full!"

  Leroy clambered over to where I lay and dived headfirst into my pussy to stop her from drinking too much. I writhed on the floor, wrapping my body in the sheet, a thin, white film covering my skin, but by then I was beginning to feel drunk myself and my arms and legs felt heavy. My hair spread out on the floor around me like the long tendrils of a plant on the seabed, swaying in a warm ocean current.

  Leroy must have been thirsty. He lapped at me like a dog, slurping at my skin deliciously, flicking the tip of his tongue over my electrified body, gorging himself on every last drop of the sweet, sticky liquid that covered me.

  The hot afternoon sun shone down through the open window, bathing my face in its warm glow. The powerful scent of the r u m was overwhelming, and I closed my eyes and let it wash over me in waves.

  Looking down at Leroy, my eyes half open, I could just see his forehead bobbing gently between my legs. Like an old alcoholic, my eyes filled with tears as I watched him.

  Leroy stopped licking and looked up at me questioningly, his eyes begging for permission to go further. 1 shook my head slowly from side to side: permission denied. His tongue returned to work.

  Beyond his forehead 1 could see his firm, round ass and it gave me a warm feeling inside. 1 felt as though Leroy had been put on earth solely to make me feel good. And the only reason he had been given a tongue was so that he could lick my body like this. But while I refused to let T H E P I A N O P L A Y E R ' S F I N G E R S 8 $

  him go any further than that, I did show him some compassion: I allowed him to start jacking himself off.

  The hot sun moved slowly around the room and its golden rays filtered down across Leroy's body, casting a long, dark shadow. In the a p a r t m e n t next door someone was playing old records and I could hear the gentle strains of " W h e r e Is My Baby?" drifting in through the open window. I held Leroy's head in my arms.

  "Your baby's here...."

  The sunlight painted Leroy's face scarlet. His fingers were wrapped tightly around his dick, his thick knuckles lined up in a smooth curve down the length of the shaft, and as I watched him, my pussy began to feel lonely, empty without him inside me. I felt as though she were crying to herself, whispering, I miss you..., from between my legs. But sometimes crying can m a k e you feel better when you're lonely.

  "Leroy, you're so s w e e t . . . , " I panted in his ear. Thick jets of hot sperm gushed out into the coconut juice, one sticky liquid almost indis-tinguishable from the other.

  All I could think about was pouring more r u m over it and licking it all up off the floor.

  Leroy loved the piano. Once, just before dawn when I was walking to his place to sleep, a familiar melody drifted over from a bar nearby. The bar was closed, but I peered through a crack in the door. And there was Leroy at the piano. He saw me and motioned for me to come in, and he sat me down next to him on the piano stool and gave me a glass of hot lemonade to drink. He was humming to himself as he played, but I couldn't place the tune.

  Leroy's fingers looked far too big and ungainly to play the piano. But his music moved up through the soles of my feet and I felt it on my skin.

  Without thinking, I held on to his arm, mesmerized by his fingers as they wove their magic spell across the keyboard. He gave me a sidelong glance without turning from the piano, then winked at me and smiled. I realized that, for the first time, he'd outwitted me.

  I snatched the cigarette from his mouth and placed it between my lips. The brown filter was squashed and wet, and it had his teeth marks embedded in it.

  "This is a great tune to smoke to," I said.

  Leroy smiled. His hands flowed over the keys like water, his elbows thrusting, punching the air as he played. I had never seen this side of him before. Those taut, muscular arms were the same arms that held me at night, but I had never seen them move that way before. I thought to myself that if the only things left in the world were me, Leroy, and that piano, our roles would probably be reversed.

  "Leroy, if you had piano wires stretched across your teeth ..

  He stopped playing.

  "... I think I could have fallen in love with you."

  Suddenly, he grabbed my arm and pulled me sharply toward him. I lost my balance and reached out to break my fall. My hand struck the keyboard, and the heavy wooden lid came crashing down onto my arm.

  I screamed in pain and surprise. I had never screamed in front of him before, but he just lay me down across his knees and made love to me anyway. He didn't give me a chance to resist. And with my arm still trapped under the lid, I let him.

  It was only when he had finished that he realized what had happened and moved quickly to free me. I could see my red fingernails poking out from underneath the lid-—the same nails I had made him paint for me the night before. My arm, now pale from lack of circula-tion, lay there motionless, pressed down onto the keys in one long, silent chord.

  He returned the key to the guy who ran the bar and we headed back to his place together. We walked in silence. I felt as though my pussy lips had wet tissue paper between them, tissue that had been used to wipe down a very dry musical instrument. Because of that, every now and then I stumbled a little and Leroy had to support me.

  He looked at me with a worried expression, his bright, piercing eyes shining into mine, and I had to turn my face away. His shirt was stained red, but I couldn't decide if it was blood from when I had bitten his neck or lipstick from when I had kissed him.

  Leroy drew me toward him and held me tightly in the dark alley.

  THE PIANO PLAYER'S FINGERS II j

  "Please, Ruiko, I need you to love me," he whispered. The words seemed to explode into the dark silence.

  Wrapped in his arms, I drowned myself in the strong, musky scent of his body, powerful and heavy like the aroma of bay leaves in a rich chitterling stew. And I knew we didn't have long left together.

  A short while later I stopped going to Leroy's apartment altogether. I went back to partying with my boisterous friends and staying out all night. We weren't satisfied with what Tokyo had to offer, so we often went to a club on the base, and sometimes I even saw Leroy there, too.

  But we didn't speak.

  One night he was staring at me and my friends from across the room, but he didn't come over. He just sat slumped at the bar drinking rum and Coke, staring into his glass, deep in thought. He didn't speak to anyone. The only time he really looked at me was when I was sitting on another guy's knee, laughing loudly and drawing attention to myself, and then he just turned his head slightly and looked at me from over his shoulder. I could see the critical look in his eyes and it made me feel very small and self-conscious, like I'd been caught stripping or something, but I pretended not to notice and covered the guy's cheeks in thick lipstick kisses. Leroy stood up and stormed out of the club, kicking his way through some chairs as he left. It was such a relief when he'd gone—I felt free again.

  All I wanted to do that night was to get drunk and get laid. I didn't care where I slept, and I didn't care who with. I was with the guy whose knee I had been sitting on earlier, and as we walked along the bar-lined street, I suddenly had a horrible feeling—almost a premonition. I could hear the familiar sound of a piano coming from one of the bars, and I quickened my pace as we approached. I tried to get the guy I was with 1 0 0 A M Y Y A M A D A

&
nbsp; to walk faster, too, but he was even drunker than I was and he couldn't stumble along any faster.

  Suddenly the door of the bar burst open. Leroy stood there motionless, silhouetted in the doorway.

  "Yo, man...," the drunk guy slurred.

  Leroy glanced over at him and then looked at me. Then he drew back his fist and punched the guy hard in the face, sending him reeling, his arms and legs flailing wildly, into the doorway of a shop across the street. He hit the door with a loud thud and fell in a drunken heap, knocked out cold.

  I was frightened that Leroy might hit me, too, but he just stood there staring at me hesitandy.

  "I don't want to walk," I told him, and he picked me up and carried me to his car.

  Once inside I was enveloped by a strange sense of relief. I looked in the rearview mirror, thinking that the guy I had been walking with might be chasing after us. But all I could see was the crisscross lattice of the wire mesh as we drove through the gate and off the base.

  I'm not sure what I wanted to prove that night. I turned my chair I around the wrong way and sat facing him, straddled across the I seat with my legs wide open, my pussy hidden by the back of the chair. Then, leaning my elbows on the backrest, I ordered him to get undressed.

  Without taking his eyes off me, Leroy slowly began unbuttoning his shirt. When his fingers reached his zipper I motioned for him to come closer and he shuffled forward on his knees. He was at perfect kissing height. He didn't look at all embarrassed or uncomfortable with the situation, more like a child obediently waiting for my next command.

  I spat hard in his face. That was the command I had been making him wait for. Leroy frowned, a confused look in his eyes, but in an instant his face returned to its placid, innocent self. I spat at him again.

  Then, quickly reaching out my hand to his half-zipped fly, I wrenched down the zipper. He wasn't wearing any underwear. His zipper gaped wide like some cheap whore's pussy and I felt bile rising in my throat; I was nauseated with jealousy.

  I stood up and turned the chair around to face him, and sat back down again. Then, slowly, I opened my legs. Like Leroy, I wasn't wear-

  / o 6 AMY YAMADA

  ing any underwear—I didn't like it when my panty line showed through my clothes, so the only things I had on under my tight, black skirt were the scarlet garters holding up my stockings.

  I made Leroy sit on his knees on the floor in front of me. Then, reaching out my leg toward him, with one long, sharp, red heel, I stood on the soft, limp creature between his legs. His face screwed up tight in pain. But the creature came to life, growing as rapidly as if it had just been fed.

  I pulled Leroy's head toward my skirt and put my legs up over his shoulders so we wouldn't look like some weird, hermaphrodite monster.

  The chair squeaked as it rocked backward and forward, and I gripped his neck tightly between my legs and threw my head back. My stilettos dug into his back and fell to the floor—I was reminded of those coin-operated horse rides that I used to cry and beg my mom to let me go on when I was small. Now I had my own horse and I could ride it as often as I liked, not paying with coins, but with my eyes, my teeth, and my lips.

  I buried my fingers deep in his thick, wiry hair, and arched my back like a cat, my body stretched taut like a spring, moving up and down, up and down, as his tongue lapped deliciously over me.

  But I wasn't ready to come yet, so I clenched my fists in his hair and pulled his head up with both hands to stop his tongue. Leroy just gazed up at me with that guiltless expression of his. He must have known how much that look in his eyes excited me.

  I pushed him away and peeled off one of my silk stockings. Then I tied it tightly around his wrists. I doubt whether 1 needed to have bothered—he would never have tried to resist me. He would have hand-cuffed himself if I had asked him.

  Now it was his turn to writhe. My lips melted like hot crayons on his skin, and the tight, black canvas did not resist. My long hair wandered t h e p i a n o p l a y e r ' s f i n g e r s i i j on its own over his body as my head moved to and fro, and before long I had him crying out.

  "Give it to me," he begged.

  I looked up at his contorted face, the sadness and pain in his eyes bringing a lump to my throat, and I gave it to him.

  Leroy called my pussy his toothless, hungry woman. And he was right—that night it was ravenous, and I was desperate to fill it. It had always seemed that I could never shake the feeling of impatience gnawing away inside me, like the brush in a bottle of nail polish, always too short to reach the bottom. But that night I really tried for the first time, and the brush finally touched the bottom of the bottle. Hot tears poured down my cheeks.

  The next thing I remember I was straddled on top of Leroy's body like a little girl. He slowly sat up and put his tied-up arms over my head.

  It felt like a noose as he brought them down to my neck and drew my face toward his. I could feel my own black stocking rubbing up against the nape of my neck. Leaning his head to one side, he kissed me, and I fell onto his chest as though I had fainted, and took my punishment.

  That was the last time I saw Leroy. I heard rumors around town that he had been looking for me, and that he was often to be found drunk, crying in bars. But no one would give him my address or my telephone number.

  I spent my nights alone in my apartment, just staring into space, and by the time I started going out again, Leroy had quit the military and gone back to the States. But by then I had a new boyfriend anyway.

  No one seemed surprised that Leroy was back. It had been two years since he left Japan, but nobody thought anything much about it when he returned. In a way it was such a small thing—the number of quiet, black men in town had increased by one. None of the people who remembered Leroy had even seen him yet.

  Even if they had, they probably wouldn't have recognized him.

  One afternoon, I sat in the apartment, rolling his name around in my mouth. Leroy. It tasted like one of those sugarcoated pills the doctor gives you—nice at first, but it begins to taste bitter if you keep it in your mouth too long without swallowing. In spite of that, the two years he had been away had given me the chance to distance myself from his memory, and now that he was back again, I thought I deserved the chance to have some more fun with him. And of course, it was Leroy's duty to let me. I began to feel restless just thinking about that bitter flavor that only I could taste. When I began to recall the way things had been between me and Leroy, and considered the possibility of picking up where we had left off, I began to feel horny and excited. I lit a cigarette to calm myself down, but D.C. seemed to have already noticed my change of mood and was looking at me suspiciously.

  / o 6

  A M Y Y A M A D A

  Memories suddenly began to flood back . . . the smell of wet grass*

  the echo of our passionate sighs breaking the silence; Leroy's silhouet ted figure standing in the dark kitchen in front of his opened refrigerator, getting himself a beer; the quizzical expression on his face when he was eating fish and realized he could still smell my musky scent on his fingers.

  My heart sped up. I remembered the man who had been sucking nectar from the flowers under the window the day I got the telephone call about Leroy, and, although it was unlikely, I wondered if it could have been him down there in the bushes. But I would have known him if it were. The image of his face was burnt so deeply into my mind that I would have recognized him anywhere. And anyway, if it really had been Leroy, he would have recognized me, too, leaning out the window. '

  And no matter how far away he had been, his dark, piercing eyes and his thick, black lashes would have blazed with passion, screaming out that he still wanted me. It wasn't that I was being conceited. That's the way our relationship was. When we were together, we just slipped naturally into our assigned roles. So I knew the guy in the bushes couldn't have been him.

  "What are you wearing tonight, Ruiko?" D.C.'s voice pulled me back from my daydreams.

  "Huh? Tonight? Wh
y, what's happening tonight?"

  "Oh, shit! You're kidding me, right? It's the Black Ball tonight."

  I had forgotten all about it. It was just a bunch of young people having dinner together, pretending to be sophisticated for the evening, but everyone took a partner and you never knew what might happen—you might even find yourself sitting at the same table as a guy you had once slept with, who had brought his new girlfriend with him. I knew because it had happened to me once. He and I spent the whole evening trying to stifle our laughter, pretending not to know each other so the people we had come with wouldn't notice anything was wrong. And T H E p i a n o p l a y e r ' s f i n g e r s 9 7

  when our feet touched under the white linen tablecloth, I pretended to cough, spluttering into my champagne to hide my giggles. Actually, I had really enjoyed myself that night. It had been a lot of fun.

  I never imagined that I would bump into Leroy at the ball. I wanted another taste of that relationship of ours, which only the two of us could understand, but I never wanted to hear his piano-playing again.

  For the past two years I had been so frightened by the memory of his piano-playing that at times it felt as though I'd built my new life around that mixture of hatred and fear.

  By the time we got to the ball and handed in our tickets at the reception, most people had already started eating.

  I was wearing a skintight red dress, so tight that D.C. couldn't even squeeze his hand inside. I often wore red when I went out, and after a while it sort of became my signature color, so that when a guy saw something red it would remind him of me. My red stilettos were a good example. I had worn them during so many encounters that just the sight of them was bound to make any number of faces turn red.