Bedtime Eyes

by Amy Yamada

  I wiped my tears on his shoulder and reached out my hand to write on the misty glass. But then I let it fall again.

  "What were you going to write?" Leroy asked.

  "P-A-S-T."

  "The past means nothing," he told me.

  "I'd like to believe that."

  Dawn began to break. It was still raining. It was probably going to rain all day. It felt cold for June, and Leroy's body no longer warmed mine. Things were different now. But he would still keep playing the piano. That's all he ever did. Even when there was no piano in front of him.

  I put a thermometer in my mouth to check my temperature. I had a I fever. I had got out of Leroy's car partway home and walked the I rest of the way in the rain, so now I had a cold. When I opened the door of the apartment, D.C. was dumbfounded to see me standing there with my hair dripping wet. I stared back, but my gaze went straight through him.

  He wrapped me in a towel and guided me to the bedroom, then went to the kitchen to open a can and make hot soup for me. I wanted a cigarette but mine were too damp to light, so D.C. offered me the one he was smoking. I was grateful for his kindness.

  "I love you." I smiled.

  I made it a rule never to tell lies to avoid hurting someone's feelings, and it felt the same as when I pretended I wanted to fuck even though I really didn't. D.C. stared at me in surprise, pinching himself to make sure he wasn't hearing things. He didn't even notice the soup pan boiling over.

  And of course, he didn't hear me apologizing silently to him in my heart.

  I pretended to be much worse than I really was and spent the whole day on my back, trying to think of anything but Leroy. But he was hiding behind my eyelids, and as soon as I closed my eyes his face appeared, I I o

  A M Y Y A M A D A

  enveloping my mind as if he had been waiting for me, so I had to keep my eyes open to avoid him. I found I could shut him out by concentrating on D.C.'s smile and the things in the room around me, but little by litde my concentration would lapse until I could hear the name Leroy screaming out from every pore of my body, and my mind was swamped by a flood of memories of the touch of his hands, his feet, his tongue, and his dick. Then, when I tried to escape into sleep, his fingers would seize my body, tickling me and confusing me. When I woke, my whole body would be drenched in a sweet, passion-soaked sweat, an ironic sort of wet dream.

  D.C. was sincerely concerned because I wasn't pushing him around the way I usually did.

  "You're freaking me out. I've never seen you like this before. Why |

  aren't you drinking the juice I made you?"

  "Leave me alone. I can't even look at that juice unless I'm starving."

  D.C. tried cooking dishes made with liver and kidney to give me vitamins and iron, but just looking at them made me feel sick. I only wanted one thing. I felt like a young girl again. My whole lovesick body was weeping quietly to itself.

  "You really don't give a shit about me, do you?"

  Apparently D.C. had been talking about the weather and I hadn't replied. The weather? That was the last thing on my mind.

  "Goddamn it, D.C.! Why do I have to talk about the fucking weather with you?"

  "You said you loved me. But I can tell you don't."

  I was too fed up for words.

  "So if I listen to you go on about the weather, that proves I love you?"

  "Yeah," said D.C., breaking down in tears.

  It wasn't the first time I'd seen a man cry, so I wasn't particularly moved.

  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

  "All right," I said, "come over here and hold me. That'll make you feel better."

  It was the easiest way to stop his crying. Anybody would start complaining if he couldn't touch the person he loved. I used to purposely push my boyfriends away whenever they'd get like this, but I didn't have the energy right now.

  As I lay in his arms, I tried to pretend it was actually Leroy who was making love to me. But my imagination wouldn't stretch that far. I knew Leroy's touch far too well to fool my senses into thinking it was him.

  Leroy and I crossed paths a few times after that rainy night. He was always with a beautiful young woman and I was always with D.C. or some of my friends, but when I caught sight of him I'd prick up my ears like a rabbit and strain, hoping to hear what he was saying from a distance. My friends didn't talk about him anymore and they didn't realize that I was completely focused on him instead of them.

  But Leroy no longer looked over at me in that way that excited me and made my nipples hard: his attention was focused on his new girlfriend, his smoldering eyes so deep and passionate that from time to time she blushed. I had to try hard to conceal the anger building up inside me, but I couldn't help wondering if she had ever been in Leroy's car and whether she could smell me there on the backseat.

  Girl, you don't know anything about me and Leroy. He fucked me out of pure contempt in the backseat of that car. You could never be that close to him. My heart pounded, beating with a strange sense of superiority.

  Leroy's fingers, playing my body, had captured my heart. Heat flooded over my body just thinking about them. What had happened to me? Once I had been able to twist him around my little finger with a

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  1 0 4 A M Y Y A M A D A

  glance, and I could have had him licking my boots with just a sigh But now J was fixating on every flicker of his thick eyelashes.

  If this went on, I would start rotting like a discarded corpse. I had to do something. I looked at D.C. There would be no miracle with him.

  Hopelessness washed over me. On the other side of the room, Leroy was drinking from a glass in one hand and was absently stroking the girl's cheek with the back of the other. She's not a keyboard. She's not your keyboard, Leroy!

  "Ruiko, are you okay?" asked a friend.

  My forehead was covered in sweat.

  "I'm fine. Why? Really, I'm fine."

  "She's much better," supplied D.C. in a serious tone. "We're back to J

  making love every day." Everyone collapsed, laughing.

  I was quiet—I didn't have the energy to get angry with his big mouth. Recently he started crying every time I tried to ignore him. It was such a hassle, I just took him to bed to avoid dealing with it.

  "So, call me sometime. I'll give you my number—it's . . . "

  I almost leapt out of my seat at Leroy's voice. My mind instantly became a blank sheet of paper, a pen poised, ready, and I memorized the figures as they tumbled off his lips to some woman, his familiar voice cutting through all the background noise, but far too low for D.C. or any of my friends to hear. At last I had it. Leroy's number was embla-zoned in my mind, fiery, hot, and glowing.

  But then I began to wonder what to do with it. Did I want more fucking in the back of his car? Why was I letting myself down like this now? I'd always made a point of upholding my pride in front of men.

  I had the feeling something powerful was moving me along. Maybe it was some kind of divine retribution for having recognized Leroy's talent, something governed solely by emotion and totally beyond control. Why was it jo hard, and why couldn't I break free? I felt trapped, thrashing against the sweet, sticky threads of a spider's web.

  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 When monkeys want to get honey from an anthill they use a piece of straw. There are lots of holes in the hill where the honey is stored, and the monkey just inserts the straw into one of them, then takes it out again and licks the honey off the end. But the monkey can only get a tiny bit of honey that way, so next he crushes the end of the straw to make it look like a little broomstick and sticks that in the hole instead.

  That way, he can get much more honey each time. But once he takes the crushed end of the straw out of the hole, he finds it's very difficult to get it back inside again, so the clever monkey never pulls it out completely: he puts his mouth down close to the hole and keeps moving the straw up and down, licking the sweet honey from it each time he pu
lls it up.

  How can I make a broomstick like that? I'd have to become a witch. If I had a broom like that I would stick mto Leroy and never take it out again.

  But I'll never be a witch. And I don't know any magic.

  Overwhelmed by frustration, I burst into tears.

  "Ruiko! What's wrong?"

  My friends were all staring at me in disbelief.

  "Lay off, will you? I'm just drunk. I'm feeling sentimental, that's all."

  They all looked at one another, worried. It was the first time any of them had ever seen me cry, and they were at a loss. D.C. was the only one smiling, the love shining in his eyes as he gently stroked my back to comfort me.

  Six crushed, empty beer cans lay under the bed. D.C. was sleeping peacefully, snoring gently to himself—the alcohol was working nicely. I wanted to get him to sleep as quickly as I could that night, so I plied him with beer to get him drunk while he was still hungry, then filled him up with food afterward. Never once suspecting that I might have some ulterior motive, D.C. took my kindness at face value, as I knew he would, and ate and drank till he fell asleep.

  I left quietly, and ran to a phone booth near the apartment. I felt as furtive as a spy on some kind of secret mission. It felt strange to be out there, catching my breath next to the phone booth when there was a perfectly good phone in my apartment, but I didn't want to leave any evidence behind—even if it was only in D.C.'s dreams.

  My hand shook as I reached out to put the coins in the slot. Then I silently mouthed the numbers that had been burned into my brain as I punched them into the dial. The phone on the other end of the line, the one in Leroy's room, began to ring. I was pretty sure he wouldn't be asleep yet, but I did begin to wonder if he might be sprawled out under tangled sheets with another woman. I was mortified by what 1 was doing. But then he picked up the receiver.

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  A M Y Y A M A D A

  "Leroy?"

  He was silent.

  "Were you asleep?"

  "No, I was working on a composition."

  "Do you have a piano there?"

  "Yes, I'm staying at a friend's place."

  I couldn't think of anything else to say.

  "Ruiko, are you crying?"

  "Can you tell it's me?"

  "Sure I can."

  "I want to see you."

  "Why?"

  "You know you want to see me, too...."

  "Shit!" he muttered, and I heard a low chuckle. "What about that other dude I saw you with?"

  "He's asleep."

  "You treat him like you used to treat me."

  "No, I don't!"

  For a moment Leroy was silent, but then he gave me the name of a hotel and a room number, and told me to meet him there. I waited for him to put the phone down before hanging up myself. Then I closed my eyes and let myself breathe again.

  I went back to my apartment. There were some records scattered on the table, so I jotted the hotel room number down on one of the album sleeves. D.C.'s breathing was slow and rhythmic. But something was pulling me, dragging me away.

  I had left a record playing on the turntable, and a deep, husky voice was singing the blues. I could hear the needle scratching over the grooves, leaving traces behind as the record went round and round and round.

  I knew it wouldn't be long before I too, had the same sort of scars.

  THE PIANO PLAYER'S FINGERS II j

  I spent fifteen minutes waiting in the hotel room before Leroy finally showed up. He glanced over at me as he came in, then took his hat off and threw it down on the bed. I'd have expected him to know that leaving a hat on a bed is supposed to be bad luck.

  "I'm hungry," he said. "Let's eat."

  He called room service and ordered spaghetti and escargots for two, and a bottle of champagne.

  "I'm not hungry," I said.

  "Hey, come on, let's eat. We've never had a proper meal together."

  He took off his tie and undid the top button of his shirt.

  "I just don't feel like it."

  "Ahh, I see. Well, maybe you'd prefer some of this instead then?"

  He unzipped his trousers and took out his flaccid dick, gripping it tightly in his hand. Disgusted, I scowled up at him, but before I could say anything there was a knock at the door. It was room service. Leroy turned away and told me to let them in. I did as he said. He signed the check and gave the waiter a tip, holding his hat casually over his crotch.

  The natural way he pulled it off was really something.

  Leroy laid the food out on the table and opened the champagne.

  There seemed little point in just standing there, so I sat down, too. First he ate one of the escargot, tipping his head back to slurp the spicy, melted butter from the shell. Then he wound his fork in the spaghetti, picking up a large forkful and sucking it noisily into his mouth. Finally, he wiped the dark, bloodred sauce from his lips, and taking a glass of champagne in his hand, he looked over at me. His zipper was still open and it looked as though his dick, which had been hanging limp till now, was coming to life at last.

  "You're just dying to tell me that I can't hide my upbringing, aren't you?"

  1 0 0 A M Y Y A M A D A

  "Is this what you call a proper meal?"

  He continued to eat. From time to time he would lick the tomato sauce from his lips and, without raising his head, look up at me across the table. Then, when he had finished, he leaned over and swapped his empty plate for mine, which I had hardly touched, and began eating that, too. I was incensed.

  "You only asked me here to eat, didn't you?"

  "Uh-huh."

  As he slurped down the last string of spaghetti, he stood up. Then he grabbed my arm and pushed me down on the bed.

  "Just to e a t . . . "

  He kissed me roughly and I tried to turn my face away, but he forced his tongue between my lips.

  "I never knew you could be like this." I was seething.

  "You should—you were the one who showed me what I could do. If you hadn't dumped me like that I'd probably still be happily running around after you, wiping your ass, even now."

  "So you want revenge?"

  "Now let's get this straight." His face took on a cruel expression as he continued. "Your dumping me was just the beginning. I really dont care about that anymore. In a way, I should be thankful. I used to play the piano because I wanted to, just because I enjoyed it. The surprising thing for me was that other people wanted to hear me play, too. And now people admire me. They treat me like a god."

  "Don't talk shit. You're just trying to get me back for what I did to you. You've been planning this for the past two years, haven't you? I bet you've thought of nothing else since then. Tell me I'm wrong! You can't, can you ?"

  "Baby..." His brow knitted and he smiled. "People say I'm a genius...."

  T H E P I A N O P L A Y E R ' S F I N G E R S l i g i w a s lost for words. And my last shreds of hope disappeared, too. It was clear to me now that nothing he had done had been for me.

  "Then why do you want me?"

  Leroy didn't answer. He just tore my clothes off and went at my skin the same way he had the spaghetti. T h e n without asking, he pinned down my arms and forced himself on me. My legs were free but might as well have been bound by cord—I couldn't move.

  I opened my eyes and stared at him and he stopped his violent thrusting.

  "I love your hands," I said.

  For a moment he looked terribly sad.

  "I knew . . . " I tried to go on, but the words stuck in my throat and I swallowed hard. "I knew what amazing talent you had in your fingers and . . . "

  Leroy frowned.

  |. and it frightened me."

  "Look, just shut up, okay?"

  But I had said all I needed to say and now I could rest and give myself up to him. He started thrusting again.

  Once I'd had a slave called Leroy. By ruling him, I knew I existed and I wanted to rule forever. But my slave broke the rules and he had been pu
nished for that.

  I moaned, and Leroy slapped me hard across my face. My lip split and blood poured out. He hated me now. But I knew he loved me, too.

  He continued thrusting, trying to humiliate and defeat me, and I let him do what he wanted. I'd pretended not to recognize his genius and now I was being punished. He could do as he pleased with me. He'd earned the right.

  I could tell he was feeling the same way now that he had two years earlier when he had fucked me by the piano. As soon as people had be-

  / o 6 AMY YAMADA

  gun to recognize his talent, he had started a new life as that pianist. I wondered what else I could possibly do for him. Perhaps the only thing I was capable of was crying to make him feel superior.

  I nearly lost consciousness a number of times, and Leroy was obviously very satisfied with his work. When he had finished I couldn't speak. My hair was plastered to my forehead with sweat and he brushed it away with his fingers so he could look into my eyes.

  "Now I'm going to be living for the touch of your hands," I confessed.

  "But they don't belong to you."

  I started to weep quiedy, and Leroy stroked my hair.

  "You're just too late."

  "But I've changed. You've changed me."

  "No, you mean my hatred for you has made you change."

  That was how Leroy laid out his feelings for me.

  After that Leroy often summoned me over to see him. It wasn't k that he wanted to hold me—he didn't pretend that he did. I knew he would probably abuse me, but I always dropped everything and rushed to our usual hotel room, sometimes even forgetting to put on my lipstick.

  Each time, the pattern was the same. I was always hungry for him and that hunger was never satisfied. The way he screwed me was humiliating. He hurt me and threw me out of his room without giving me the time to lick my wounds. He made me feel like I was nothing, but I couldn't stop myself from going, no matter how miserable I knew it would make me.