by Otaro Maijo
Original title: Ashura Garu
Copyright © Otaro Maijo, 2003
Originally published in Japan by Shinchosha Publishing Co. Ltd.
English translation Copyright © Stephen B. Snyder 2014
All rights reserved.
Cover and book design by Sam Elzway
This book has been selected by the Japanese Literature Publishing Project (JLPP), an initiative of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan.
No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the copyright holders.
HAIKASORU
Published by VIZ Media, LLC
1355 Market Street, Suite 200
San Francisco, CA 94103
www.haikasoru.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maijo, Otaro, 1973- author.
[Ashura Garu]
Asura Girl / Otaro Maijyo ; translated by Stephen Snyder.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4215-7537-7 (paperback)
1. Serial murders--Fiction. 2. Suspense fiction. I. Snyder, Stephen, 1957- translator.
PL856.A46A8413 2014
895.63'6--dc23
2014024941
Haikasoru eBook edition
ISBN: 978-1-4215-8129-3
The Cliffs
The Forest
Round-and-Round Devil
About the Author
1
They told me it would be okay, so I went ahead and did it. But of course it got messed up. No way it wasn’t going to get messed up—or lost completely. My self-respect.
Now I want it back.
That’s what I want to tell him, but I know it won’t help. Sano isn’t about to give it back to me, and self-respect isn’t something a person can give you back anyway. You’ve got to get it back yourself. It was a bad idea in the first place to do it with somebody I don’t really like. For one thing, he didn’t say he liked me—he wasn’t even really a friend. We go to the same school, but we don’t hang out with the same people, aren’t in any classes or clubs together. So why did I do it with him?
Because I was drunk. That’s what I’d like to say, but that wasn’t really the reason. And it wasn’t what you’d call an “ethical lapse” or anything fancy like that either. The truth is…I did it because I was curious.
The size of Akihiko Sano’s penis was the punch line for a lot of jokes around school. Everybody said it was microscopic, and I guess part of me wanted to see if the rumors were true, just for the hell of it. Or maybe it was because I’d heard he knew some special “technique,” something he did with his fingers to make up for his micro-dick. But the truth is I don’t care about “technique.” If I don’t like a guy at least a little, I just can’t get into it…But then again I did get wet with him, which I suppose had something to do with what he was doing, so I guess you could say the rumors were true—on both counts.
So there I was, letting Akihiko Sano do all this weird stuff to me…and somehow getting off on it.
Gross!
It makes me feel sick when I think about him, butt naked, scrambling around and pawing at me and muttering all that idiotic crap. “You like that?” “You like it there?” “How ’bout that?” “Say something!” “Tell me when you want me to stick it in. I’m ready!” “You’re dripping. Listen! Hear that?”
No, I don’t! Cut it out! I’m not saying a thing. I don’t want you to “stick it in”—ever! No thank you! I’m not getting on top of you, I’m not sucking it, and the fact that I’m wet down there has nothing to do with you. You could get that sound out of an ear or a nostril or any other hole if you mashed it around that much!
Maybe because his dick was so small, it got annoyingly, weirdly hard. Creepy hard, and bent out of shape or something. And it was inside me!
Eww!
He was trying to do what he’d seen in porn videos. All that spinning around and yanking my arms and legs—it made me queasy.
And then he tried to come on my face!
Asshole asshole asshole asshole! With his filthy little disgusting prick. Asshole asshole asshole mega asshole!
You don’t come on a classmate’s face!
He nearly got me. I was pretty much zoned out, just hoping he was almost done, but luckily, when he started grunting I realized what kind of nasty trick he had in mind. In the nick of time. If I hadn’t, he would have shot his filthy load all over my face—and my self-respect would have sunk down into some cold, dark, lonely hole where no one could ever find it again. It would have just faded away, been shredded to tiny bits.
But luckily my self-respect wasn’t about to give in that easily, not in the face of Akihiko Sano’s cum. Fortunately, I have great reflexes and I managed to twist out of the way at the last second, so his semen landed only on my arm.
Shit! What do I mean “only”? That junk on my precious left arm! From now on, when my mom calls me for dinner, I’d like to pop off that arm like a mannequin or Barbie Doll, hide it under my bed, and show up at the table with just my right. My arm has been polluted by that pervert. I need my arm for kendo and tennis!
Having managed to avoid the face shot, I wiped my arm with the sheet and looked around the room. There wasn’t much chance of finding a bamboo sword or tennis racket in a love hotel, or anything else I could use as a weapon, so I did the only thing I could. I screamed at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You asshole!” And then, since he just sat there grinning, still holding his prick, I kicked him in the face.
He groaned and fell back off the bed. I had nothing more to say to him. Some black guy, like LL Cool J, was suddenly talking in my head, speaking English no less. “Okay all right, girl. So get the fuck out of here! Now!” he said, and he kind of clapped his hands or something. So I threw on my panties and bra and T-shirt and pulled on my skirt. Sano was sprawled on the floor, rubbing his face. “Ouch!” he giggled. “Wow! Is my nose bleeding?” I ignored him, grabbed my bag, opened the door, and was out of there.
But then it hit me. Shit. Money. For the room.
I could just leave the whole bill for him to pay. But I knew that was no good. I didn’t want him coming after me for my half. I pulled three one thousand yen notes from my wallet, opened the door, and tossed them in. They fluttered to the floor near Sano’s shoes.
“What?” he sputtered. “Hey, wait! Where are you going? Aiko! You can’t do this!” But I could. I turned my back on his bare-assed self, his dinky prick, the whole disgusting scene, and closed the door. The last thing I saw was my three thousand yen, scattered there next to him like a cruel sacrifice. Then I ran. From his gross face shot. From his overrated “technique.” From this stupid mess. From my stupid self.
Though the last was the hardest. No matter how much I tried.
Other girls must have done it with Sano before me, but when I started to consider what they could have liked about all that pawing and grunting, I realized I’d been had. The whole thing was a scam—a trap meant to end with the face shot that the others maybe hadn’t managed to avoid.
I imagined how shocked they’d been. Which was probably why they’d never said a word about it, just told me he was good and I should give him a try if I had the chance. And I’d fallen for it like a complete idiot—Complete Idiot Number…?
So, then, will I shut up about the face shot too? And tell some other girl he’s good, that she should give him a try if she has the chance? That his dick’s really small but his technique’s fantastic? No, I will not. It might be fun to imagine somebody annoying like Reiko or Shoko getting it in the face, but I’d never tell them t
hey should do it with Sano. My self-respect may have taken a beating, but it wasn’t that far gone.
Truth is I don’t want anybody to know I did it with him. I’d rather forget it ever happened. Or better yet, if I could, I’d rather make it so it really hadn’t ever happened.
But that fucker is going to talk tomorrow at school. So I guess I have to fight back, make him look like the idiot he is, tell everybody he tried to come on my face but I managed to dodge and give him a good kick for his trouble.
Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just let him make a fool of himself—anyway, no matter what I do the guys are going to imagine me starring in a face shot like the ones in their videos. I can’t stand thinking about it. Can’t stand them thinking about it. Sano naked, fucking with me. Back door, me on top. Shit.
Maybe I’ll skip school tomorrow.
But then they’ll think I have something to hide, and it’ll only be worse. No, I’ll go. I don’t like running away from trouble…at least that’s what I tell myself. But isn’t that exactly what I was doing? Running away? Running. Running. That’s how I ended up at a hotel having meaningless sex with Sano in the first place.
The real idiot…is me.
The world is full of losers, and lots of them probably end up sleeping with someone they don’t like. And some of them probably get cum on their faces. My brother said more people rent adult movies than any other kind, so there are plenty of guys like Sano who learned everything they know about sex from porn; and if all of them are trying to come on some poor girl’s face, there must be lots of victims out there. All those assholes trying to shoot their nasty jiz—pyu, pyu, pyu—right on your face. Totally tragic.
Of course, I came within inches of totally tragic myself. And in the end, what’s the difference? No matter how much I pity myself, it doesn’t do me any good. I made my bed, so to speak, and I have to lie in it. Having other people pity me isn’t going to save me, either. There’s really no one out there who’d be interested in saving me anyway.
So I have to do it myself.
But how?
First step: stop pitying myself.
When my brother isn’t spouting statistics on porn rentals, he’s been known to say that self-pity is a total drag—you sit around feeling sorry for yourself and never get anywhere. “I can’t stand narcissists, like Miki Imai,” he says. “They go around saying how much they love themselves, but in the end they’re only talking to themselves. Anybody who talks about himself all the time is a douchebag in my book.” Of course, he’s never even met Miki Imai, much less talked to her. But that’s what he says. Anyway.
So I’ve decided to stop talking about myself so much.
Okay. So what to do instead?
First off, how about getting cleaned up? Get rid of this gross Sano filth. A bath! It’s only fifteen minutes from Shinjuku to Chofu on the express, but it never seemed so long.
I finally made it home and took a shower. But somehow I still didn’t feel clean, so I ran a hot bath and got in for a soak. As soon as I did, I remembered the bubble-bath ball I bought at the Body Shop, so I climbed out, wrapped myself up in a towel, and went upstairs to get it from my room. When I got back, I tossed it in the tub—and just about gagged on the stink: lavender. Usually, I can’t stand bubble baths or lavender, but when I get depressed, there’s nothing like something a little exotic…at least that’s what I’ve decided lately as part of my “self-therapy.” Pretend a bit. It seems to work. Today I’m Kerstin, one of my very favorite people. I’m a Swedish exchange student who has come to America for high school, and sometimes I get letters from my brother, Olle, who lives back in Sweden, out in the countryside. He asks me what it’s like “there” (by which he means Boston) or tells me that “here” (a village called Hadetbra—that means “Farewell” in Swedish) he’s busy with his sheep; that he’s going to buy a ticket sometime soon and pay me a visit “there” so we can go see the crocodiles at the zoo. He’s never seen a crocodile before…or so his letter says. Kerstin has come all the way from Sweden to live in America, but she’s not the least bit scared or homesick. She has no hang-ups—the kind of girl who takes life in stride. Whether she’s in tiny Hadetbra or big, bustling Boston, she keeps her perspective. She just gets it. She knows who she is and never gets bent out of shape. She might seem a little standoffish at first—but that’s just because she’s so awesomely cool, calm, and collected. She makes friends with all kinds of people, and she has lots of them—friends, that is, boys and girls. She seems so together that these friends naturally come to her for advice about their love lives. Of course, Kerstin sometimes admits to herself that she has worries in that department like anyone else; but she knows she’ll have to solve them herself, and she still gives the most perfect advice to her friends. Giving advice is simple enough.
Kerstin has some simple advice for Aiko Katsura in Tokyo as well: Aiko, sweetheart, sleeping with people you don’t like just makes you lonelier. Fake warmth from a body that means nothing only makes you colder. Fake “relations”—fake fucking!—leaves you farther from the world, not closer to it.
I get it. And I have to admit that it feels like there’s a huge chasm, an insurmountable distance between me and the world right about now.
But, Aiko, you shouldn’t worry so much about “distance.” Pay attention to the “road,” the “way.” That’s what’s real and concrete; “distance” is just a vague concept.
“The ‘road’ is long, but the ‘distance’ is just a fleeting dream.” Is that it?
That’s it, Aiko. If you spend your time thinking about how far you’ve strayed from the world, you’ll end up like Noguchi or Hasumi, jumping off a bridge somewhere. Or, like the Round-and-Round Devil, you’ll go from flaying stray cats and dogs in the neighborhood to chopping up those little boys—triplets not even a year old—down by the river.
I’m not crazy.
Who said you were? And why would it matter? But the point is…who do you really like?
What? Who do I like? Well, I guess the first name that pops into my head is Sekiya.
Sekiya? That’s just a reflex. You saw too much of him in middle school.
But he was so cute back then.
So what? As soon as he got to high school, he quit kendo, joined the tennis club, and started to party, party, party. He stopped going to school and turned into a complete jerk. You didn’t think much of him then, did you? Totally disappointing. It’s not him, Aiko. So who do you really like?
River Phoenix?
I was under the impression he’s slightly dead. And besides, you don’t know anything about him. You just like him because he went out with that weird Martha Plimpton for a while.
No one knows anything about celebrities, really.
So forget celebrities. There must be somebody you like right here in the real world.
Kasami?
You only went out with him for two months.
Ishiyama?
No dates, nothing but sex.
Nakagawa?
You were just flattered that he asked you out. Aiko! These guys are all history. I mean someone new, someone now. There must be somebody. Somebody you still like? Somebody you’ve always liked?
Sagara?
Sagara!
I think I really like him. Sometimes I suddenly want to see him so much I can hardly stand it.
But, Aiko, you put a question mark after his name just like all the others. When somebody asks you who you like, you don’t answer the question with a question. Love has no room for doubt. It’s absolutely sure of itself. You don’t say, “I may perhaps like so-and-so.” That’s just wrong. This is about your one-and-only, your everything—it should be the clearest thing in the whole wide world.
So, Aiko, there must be someone you were interested in even before you started going out with Sekiya. Someone you wouldn’t trade for Kasami or Ishiyama or Nakaga
wa or Sano.
That’s so Kerstin.
And there is, of course. I know it’s not right—though I’m not sure why, or who it would hurt to admit it. Me maybe? Anyway, I’m sorry, and I know it’s too queer and boring and all that, but I can’t help it: for more than six years now I’ve been in love with a boy I knew in elementary school. Yoji Kaneda. My first love, but I never seemed to get over him. What can I say?
I sighed and slipped deeper into the bath. The sigh blew away the bubbles, and I could see the murky water over my belly and legs. Had Sano really been touching me down there just a little while ago?
I started to get depressed again, but then Kerstin reappeared and said just the right thing: You can’t let something like that get you down, Aiko. There are plenty of people out there who are ready to do bad things to you, even worse than Sano did just now.
That’s right. Kerstin is amazing. She always knows just what to say. And she’s absolutely right about this. It could have been worse. What if Sano had managed to hit me in the face? Or even worse than that, what if he had asked me to let him come in my mouth, had stuck his little dick in and forced me to swallow. Or—nooooo!!—even worse still, the worst would have been having him come inside me and getting me pregnant. Having Sano’s baby inside me. I swear I would have killed him and raised the baby by myself. Inside the fence. In the cage. Like one of those girls in Caged Fury, fighting the other prisoners and guards tooth and nail to protect my child. But even with the baby and all, that would still be the worst. I don’t want to go to prison…or even pretend I’m in Caged Fury, and I don’t want to raise my baby behind bars.
So I guess I got off pretty easy. All kinds of people out there are ready to do all kinds of bad things to you.
And when I get to this point in my thinking, that poor man appears again, somewhere in the back of my brain. That black guy locked up in the basement by those weirdos, chained in the dark and fucked from behind by those two perverts. He’s really strong, like LL Cool J. So when he gets free he shoots the balls off the pervert who’s been fucking him, and then Bruce Willis asks him, “Are you okay?” and he says, “Nah, man. I’m pretty fucking far from okay.” I’m pretty fucking far from okay. Which makes sense, since they’d stuck some weird ball in his mouth and were fucking him up the ass. I’m pretty fucking far from okay. I always feel so sorry for him.
