Seduction Game (Art and Soul)

by Candy J. Starr

  He held the envelope out to me. “Take the money, Audrey. You obviously need it and I know what it’s like to struggle.”

  I bet his struggles had been nothing like mine.

  “You’re a smart girl. Not just pretty but talented too. I’ve seen some of your artwork. You have a bright future in front of you if it doesn’t get ruined.”

  Those words sunk into me. I’d never been told things like that. Sure, sometimes I got praise from my teachers about my art but I wasn’t the “bright future” kind of person. Maybe Mr Tachibana was right. Maybe I should just take the damn money.

  When he talked about things being ruined, it was like he had some idea of my life.

  I hesitated.

  “I’ll just put here,” he said, sliding the envelope into the side of my suitcase. “It’s not even like anyone has to know. You kept up your end of the bargain, so why not?”

  That envelope seemed to glow. I’d been strong. I’d turned it down. I wasn’t strong enough to hand it back a second time. It was easier taking it from him anyway.

  I closed my suitcase. It wasn’t even that full. One of the advantages of being poor was that I didn’t own a lot of stuff to pack.

  “Of course,” Mr Tachibana said, “more money is better.”

  “Huh?”

  I looked over and he had his hand on the fly of his pants.

  What the fuck? That creep.

  “Come on, Audrey. It can be our secret and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Somewhere nice to live for the next two weeks. It’s been a long time since someone has sucked on this.”

  Before he could get his cock fully out, I grabbed my suitcase and ran out of the room, wanting to vomit.

  How had I been such an idiot? I’d been totally sucked in by the things he’d said to me. All that warmth and sympathy, I should’ve known where that was headed. He’d never seen a bright future in me. He’d just seen a hole he could stick his cock in.

  CHAPTER 32

  I met up with Ingrid and between us we found a hostel near the campus that didn’t cost a fortune.

  “Sharing a room with other people is going to kill you,” she said.

  “I’m already dead inside. It’s not going to matter. And besides, we have so much work to do for the assessment, I’ll probably be living in my studio space.”

  “Yeah, because you’ve been in a love daze.”

  Love daze was right. I’d neglected everything in my life because Junichi had become the centre of it. Now he was gone and that centre collapsed in on itself. I just had some ragged remnants to hold onto.

  “If you feel that strongly about him, do something about it.”

  I sighed. “It’s not that easy. I did a terrible thing to him.” I’d not told Ingrid the whole story.

  “Let’s grab a drink. You need it after all that.”

  We headed to the bar near the campus. After a couple of beers, Ingrid asked me to tell her the whole story.

  “You’re hiding something, that’s obvious. Come clean.”

  “It’s pretty awful.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to judge.”

  I took a deep breath before I started. She might not judge but I did. If I heard myself say what I’d done, it’d make it all the more real. But maybe I needed to do this. I had to clear out all the shit in my brain.

  “The deal his parents offered, I took it. I agreed to sleep with him.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured something like that had happened. But it wasn’t like you’d have not slept with him anyway. It was just them sweetening the pot.”

  I ran my finger around the edge of my beer glass. I needed to tell the whole story.

  “I needed that money. There’s this guy back home. My ex.” I launched into the whole history of Sean and me. “I wanted that money so Belle and I could move away, get set up somewhere else. We’d be away from him and he’d never find us.”

  “Maybe.”

  Wow, that wasn’t reassuring.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Guys like that have a habit of tracking women down. You could hide for a while, maybe a long while but disappearing on him will just make him more determined to come after you.”

  I sighed. I knew she was right but hoped the money would give me an extra level of protection. I wanted to believe that I could run far enough that Sean would never find me. What I wanted most of all was for Sean to disappear off the face of the Earth so that I never had to worry about him again. Then I’d feel safe.

  “Did you never report him?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t. God, could you imagine going through all that, having my private life being laid bare and judged, and in the end he’d probably get a slap on the wrist and let go.”

  “That’s the way of the world isn’t it.”

  “Anyway, he’s going to jail soon. He knocked over a convenience store. Seems in the eyes of the law, Slurpees are worth a helluva lot more than a girl’s virtue.”

  I ordered another beer. This was going to be a hard drinking night.

  “That’s why I came here. Not for the culture. Not for the kudos. I needed to escape the country until he’s locked behind bars for good. That’s taking longer than expected, though. So, Belle and I need to escape. We need to be gone and, when he’s released, there will be no trace of us.”

  The beer went down easily. Much more easily than putting all this into words. My life story wasn’t a pretty one, that’s for sure.

  “I still think you need to report him. He’s got priors, obviously. He might walk free this time but he’s just going to do the same thing to another woman. He’s scum.”

  I sighed. She was right. Belle was right too. But I couldn’t do it.

  “Junichi…” I said.

  “So, what are you going to do about Junichi?” Ingrid asked.

  “I have no idea what to do about him. You can say do something about it, but what? Either way, I’m leaving the country and he’s staying here. There’s no future for us.”

  “So, forget him. Write him off as your exchange fling and move on. At least you have a fat wad of cash.”

  I kept tracing circles on my glass. I didn’t want to go into the whole thing with Mr Tachibana. That would be too much.

  “Look at you. You’re so miserable. You don’t want to write him off. Go find him, tell him how you feel. Tell him the whole story. You never know what will happen.”

  “How can I do that, though? I have nothing to offer him at all. I can’t even find him. He’s moved out of the Tachibana house. Even Shun doesn’t know where he is. The only time I’ll see him before we leave is in the final haiku class and he probably won’t even talk to me then.”

  “You can give it a try. At least you’ll have closure.”

  Closure seemed like a lousy thing to me. Like the medals they give kids for participating because they were too shit to get anything else. I sighed. It might be shit but it was the only thing left to me.

  CHAPTER 33

  It was the last official haiku class. So that meant we had to read out our haiku. I didn’t want to. I so didn’t want to. I couldn’t stand up in that class and read the words that Junichi had helped me write. It would be like one of those bad montage scenes, looking back on the happy times of our relationship. A short montage of seventeen syllables.

  I was late to class anyway. The girl in the bunk above me snored all night, then a group of chicks had come in shitfaced at 2am, making a heap of noise. I’d finally got to sleep when my alarm when off. I rushed down for the free breakfast then had to line up forever to have a shower. There were only two showers in the whole place for a ton of people.

  I’d been there for five days and the place drove me nuts but I had no other option. It was cheap and close to campus and you got free breakfast. I didn’t want to touch one yen of that money the Tachibanas had given me. That was for when I got home. I carried it around in my bag, keeping it close to me like a security blanket. That might’ve been a stupid move
but I didn’t trust anyone in that hostel.

  It took all my courage to walk through the door to haiku class. He’d be there and I had no idea how he’d react to me.

  It wasn’t a big class and we just had one big table. I sat down in one of the available seats. I wouldn’t look for him. I’d act like he didn’t even exist. My head kept moving of its own accord. I needed to see him. Even if he hated me, I couldn’t miss out on this, maybe my last chance to ever see him.

  My heart pounded. He wasn’t sitting to the right of me. I wasn’t sure if he was to the left. The guy with the incredibly big head blocked my view. There was someone beside him but I wasn’t sure if it was Junichi or not. It had to be him. Who else could it be?

  “Audrey.”

  Shit, it was my turn to read. Hell, it wasn’t exactly a long poem. It’d take seconds to read.

  I struggled to stand on my jelly legs. I wasn’t even sure I had a voice.

  I read the haiku. My voice trembled and I wasn’t even sure if I was reading the right words. I just wanted to get it over with.

  Before I sat down, I looked to my left. It wasn’t Junichi.

  Where was he?

  Not here in class.

  But this was an important part of our assessment. He had to be here. Maybe he’d gotten an exemption. He hated me that much, that he couldn’t even spend an hour in the same room as me. That was loud and clear. My ears buzzed and I couldn’t hear anyone else’s readings. The words just swarmed around with the rest of the buzz.

  The room was too hot anyway. How could anyone else stand it?

  Finally, we’d finished and I wanted to bolt. I’d go to my studio, get all my work finished off and forget about him.

  “Audrey?” Kyoko Tanaka called to me.

  The last thing I needed was her talking to me. She’d spoken to me a total of once since I’d been in class and that was to ask if I was going to a costume party. I wasn’t. She was just being bitchy about my outfit. Her and her friends talked about me a lot. Even though they spoke in Japanese, I knew. You didn’t need to understand the words to figure that out. Just the way they looked at me when they talked and laughed was enough.

  “What?”

  I shoved my notebook in my bag and walked toward the door. That would let her know I wasn’t in a talking mood.

  “Do you know what’s going on with Junichi?”

  I shrugged. That was not a conversation we were going to have.

  “You live with the Tachibanas though, right?”

  Of course she knew that. That was the main source of her hatred of me. She wanted Junichi and I had daily access to him. If she knew how much access I’d had, she’d kill me on the spot.

  “Yep.” No need for anyone to know I’d moved out. That would just complicate matters.

  “So you know why he’s dropped out of university?”

  My bag fell to the floor. An apple and a couple of tampons rolled across the floor. I scrambled to pick them up. At least that kept her from seeing the shock on my face. Maybe she had things confused. Junichi wouldn’t drop out. Not because of me.

  “I think you’re mistaken.”

  “No way. Midori was in the admin office and overheard everything.”

  “Well, go ask Midori then.”

  I headed to my studio, tears prickling my eyes. Junichi had dropped out of university. He’d thrown away his future because of me. I hated myself.

  He’d pushed me away in disgust. That’s how we ended. That was it. Forever.

  CHAPTER 34

  I pulled out the canvases from my space, needing to go through them to work out which ones I’d submit in my assessment and what work I needed to still do. I couldn’t fail at everything in this exchange.

  Even though I had over a week of semester left, I had to have everything hung for the assessment in the next few days. Then I could pack everything up on the last day and fly home.

  As I sat them around me, the happiness I’d felt at the time I’d painted them resounded. I’d been happy. I had to hold onto that. Pity that happiness had been built on a bed of lies.

  Had he really dropped out? I could not even imagine him doing that. He had a life plan. That stupid girl, Midori, must’ve heard things wrong. Junichi wasn’t the type to do that.

  If Junichi had dropped out of university then Shun would know all about it. I didn’t want to use the kid to get information but I’d promised to keep in contact with him anyway.

  I sent a quick message. “Hey kid, how’s things?”

  It didn’t take long to get a huge message back from him. How had he typed so much in such a short time? Kids nowadays!

  I scrolled through it.

  Junichi had been at his grandmother’s place down the coast. He’d come back saying he was dropping out of university. Mrs Tachibana blamed me. Of course, she blamed me.

  Shun didn’t mention why Junichi was dropping out. Either Shun didn’t know or else he hadn’t thought to tell me. Maybe he thought I didn’t care.

  The rest of the message was about going to cram school and how much he hated it. It was much more fun playing games with me.

  “I miss you, Audrey.” That had hearts around it.

  I replied, then put my phone back in my bag.

  The canvases were still spread out around me, taking up other people’s spaces. I just had to have everything ready to hang. A few finishing touches. Looking at my work, I wasn’t happy with what I’d done this semester. It was good enough for me to pass but I was capable of doing much better. I knew that.

  There really wasn’t anyone around. I checked the time. It was later than I’d thought. Oh well, I had work to do and no desire to go back and sit on that horrible bunk in my room while girls around me chatted about their fun adventures. They’d wanted me to go out drinking with them last night but meh. Not for me.

  I set out my paints. The first canvas only needed a few touches and it’d be ready.

  I had eight decent pieces. Ten would be enough to get me through, then I’d be out of this place. Even if things weren’t great at home, I’d see Belle again. I missed her so much. She’d be so happy to see me too. We could sit around in our PJs having Netflix marathons and stuffing our faces with junk food. I’d missed that.

  Without thinking, I got out the sketch of Junichi. I traced over the lines of Junichi’s face with my fingertip.

  If I’d known what Mrs Tachibana had in mind, I’d have sacrificed that drawing in an instant. It was only lines on paper. There was nothing more to it. In return, she’d taken a sledgehammer to Junichi’s life. Smashing it all. A sketch couldn’t make me happy.

  It did give me a glimmer of happiness to think that I might’ve made Junichi happy, even for a short time. Maybe, one day, he’d look back and not see me as a pure villain. He might even smile at the memory of what we’d had. That would take a helluva long time though, I bet.

  “Forgive me, Junichi,” I whispered, feeling stupid at talking out loud. “One day, forgive me.”

  It was late in the night when I finished up. I still had work to do for a couple of my other classes but I’d got the bulk of my painting work finished.

  I got to the door of my building. It was raining outside. Of course it was. Screw my life. I ran back inside in case someone had left an umbrella sitting around in the building entrance. People left umbrellas behind all the time. Except today.

  I could run for it, though. I’d get saturated but that wouldn’t kill me.

  I pelted across the grounds but kept looking to the sides. That was natural, running across the dark campus. You couldn’t be too careful. Then I realised it wasn’t a scary creeper I was looking out for. It was Junichi. Every time I’d been caught in the rain, he’d rescued me. But he’d never do that again.

  I sat on my bunk, trying to study for my Japanese test. My work had been hung for assessment and, with the haiku class finished, it was the only thing I had left. Those stupid grammar forms just floated in front of my eyes, though. In a few days,
I’d be on the plane and I’d have no need for any of this Japanese then.

  I doodled on my notepad instead of working. Trying not to draw Junichi’s face. I didn’t need the reminders.

  What if Ingrid had been right? I should tell him everything. Even if I didn’t trust him. Even if meant taking a leap of faith scarier than jumping into a massive ravine.

  Even if he looked down on me after I told him, he hated me anyway. Maybe knowing why I’d done it would help him. Even if I didn’t want closure, maybe he did.

  I had no way of contacting them. He’d not answer my call, I bet. And I wasn’t going to use Shun to get in touch with him. I couldn’t imagine facing him and saying the words either. It’d been hard enough telling Ingrid.

  I could write them down, though. Even if I couldn’t give the letter to him, maybe it’d help me. I started at the beginning, the day I met Sean. I filled pages with my story. The whole sordid thing. Just the facts. No self-pity. No justification.

  My hand cramped. I wasn’t used to writing so much. I shook the pain out and kept writing.

  I sure as hell wouldn’t post this to him at the Tachibana’s. It was my entire soul on that paper. I couldn’t think of another way to get it to him, though. He might not come back to university.

  I sighed and folded the sheets of paper.

  There was one place that I could leave it. I wasn’t sure when he’d go there but he had to at some time.

  I didn’t know the address of the storage place but I remembered the name on the falling down sign. I managed to look it up and decipher the Japanese address. I should pass the Japanese test just for doing that.

  It wasn't too late. I could get the train there and back before they stopped running. I put on my shoes and headed for the station. If I didn’t go now, I might lose my nerve.

  The place was a fairly long walk from the station. The whole way I had a faint hope that Junichi might be at the storage place. That thought scared the hell out of me but at the same time, I couldn’t stop hoping. There was no reason why he would be there, though.