Loving Jiro

by Jordyn Tracey

  "Kiara?” Someone called from behind her. She turned and saw Junior following shyly.

  She sighed. “Hi, Junior."

  He caught up. “Can I walk you the rest of the way home?"

  Resisting the grumble rising in her throat, she nodded. Junior wasn't handsome, but he wasn't ugly either. He had an ordinary face, plain with dark brown skin and little acne scars on both cheeks. About her height, he had a thin frame. Even after gaining the twenty or so pounds Francine said she had, Kiara was pretty sure, she was heavier than Junior.

  "Uh, I was thinking that you might like to go to dinner with me sometime,” he offered. “We could go over to that new restaurant a mile down the road and see a movie too. Or if you don't like movies, we could go dancing at a club I know of."

  She shivered when a breeze blew right through her clothing. Glancing around, she felt someone watched them. But that feeling came often, so she didn't give it much thought. The narrow lane at the side of the road didn't hide much, and past the railing was just brush and weeds. Another few yards would be a small dirt road that led to her home.

  "I'm sorry, Junior. I'm just not interested in seeing anyone right now,” she explained. “I came out of a bad relationship before I got here, and I just need some serious recovery time. You can understand that, right?"

  His expression fell. “Yes, I guess I can. Awhile back, I dated this girl with some serious issues. The trials she put me through would shock you."

  She grinned. “Not."

  They walked on together, chitchatting about this and that. Kiara thought Junior was a good guy. Maybe they could be friends. That wouldn't be so bad, as she could use someone to talk to, someone who understood what she had gone through. From what he began to tell her of his ex-girlfriend, she had been an abuser as well.

  At the turn in to her street, Kiara paused. Someone had darted away from her door. Her heart pounded, and she was glad she wasn't alone, although she didn't think Junior could be of much help.

  She grabbed his arm. “Junior, I think someone's down there.” The street was rather dark, the street lights being too few and far between. Her companion stopped. They stood watching her door, unmoving until her neighbor stepped into view, lighting a cigarette. She heard Junior let out the breath he was holding along with her. She laughed. “We're real brave, aren't we?"

  He puffed out a scrawny chest, flared his nostrils and made a funny face. “Don't worry, I'll protect you."

  Snorting in laughter, she covered her mouth. Soon they drew up to her door. Her neighbor waved and disappeared into his house in the next duplex. Her adjoined neighbor she knew had flown to California to visit her son. With the chill tonight, Kiara wished she had gone too.

  "Well, this is me, Junior. Thanks for walking me home.” She squeezed his arm. “And listen, we can be friends if you like."

  "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that.” He grinned. “And a guy can hope for more later."

  "Goodnight.” She realized there would be no friendship. If a man was so busy wondering when the friendship would become more, he wouldn't be a friend. She shut the door gently on him since he seemed disinclined to walk away.

  Bolting the door with one hand, she hung up her keys on the hook she had drilled into the wall as soon as she moved in. Without hitting the light switch, she found the place where she had painted a country scene and gently stroked the fawn there on her way to the bedroom. Within twenty minutes, she was dressed for bed and had picked out a book to read until she fell asleep.

  A sudden banging on the door sent her over the edge of the bed to the floor. Her heart slammed against her chest. She grabbed the baseball bat beside the closet and stood still listening to the hammering.

  "Kiara,” came a muffled cry. She gasped. Junior? He sounded terrified. She hurried into the living room and flipped on the light. When she unbolted the door, it banged hard against the wall and Junior's body was thrown inside. Having fallen to the floor, Kiara looked up to find Odell in the doorway. Vomit rose in her throat.

  "No, no, no,” she cried out.

  Junior lay in a heap, unconscious at her feet. Both his eyes were swollen shut, and blood covered the front of his shirt. He was so still, she feared he was dead.

  Odell stepped into the room and slammed the door. “Yes, yes, yes. Bitch! Did you think you could get away from me, Kiara?” He shook his finger in her face, taunting her. “It took me some time and money, but I finally found you. Actually, I had to work like a dog to gather enough to pay the private investigator."

  So he didn't have friends who knew people like he had claimed all the other times he found her.

  He paced across the room, looking over the space. “It was harder this time too because every time I turned around, the guy I hired would just change his mind and not help me. You're going to pay for that frustration.” He patted the front of his pants. “Over and over again, you'll pay. And then I'll beat your face in until you're dead. How do you like that, Kiara?"

  She dropped her gaze to the floor and then to where the bat had flown when Odell burst in. She gauged whether she could reach it before he got to her. She had to try.

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  Chapter Eight

  "J-Jiro?"

  "Kiara, anata.” His voice sent shivers through her body. Not until she heard it, did she realize just how much she missed him.

  Her hands shook as she tried to maintain a hold on the phone. She sniffed and swallowed before speaking again. “Jiro, I need your help. Please."

  The line was silent.

  "Are you there?” Tears filled her eyes thinking he didn't want anything to do with her after she had dropped him and his sister.

  "I'm here.” He spoke softly. “What's wrong?"

  How could she explain what she had done, what had happened? She glanced down at the bodies on the floor and backed away until she hit the wall between her bedroom and the bathroom. “Jiro, I think they're dead. Both of them.” Blood dripped in her eye from her forehead, and she brushed it away. The reality of her actions hit her hard, and she dropped the phone on the floor before retching uncontrollably.

  She stumbled into the bathroom and slid down to the cold tiled floor. Resting her head on the side of the tub, she waited for her spinning head to clear. Sobs wracked her body until she shook from head to toe, curling against the confusion and pain.

  "Ms. Jackson?"

  She jumped at the unfamiliar voice, looking blindly around the bathroom for the bat that couldn't be there when she had left it covered in blood in the living room.

  A man stepped into the open doorway, averting his eyes. “Ms. Jackson, I work for Jiro Fuschida. I'm here to clean things up. He'll be here in a couple hours. If you would stay in here or the bedroom until I'm finished, that would be best."

  She stared. “W-What? Clean up?” Impossibly, she was thinking of a maid. This muscle bound man was nobody's maid. “I don't understand."

  He hesitated. “Mr. Fuschida had me working here in this state for a while."

  "Let me guess,” she interrupted. “For six months?"

  He didn't confirm it. “Like I said, I will do the clean up. You'll be happy to know that one of the men is still alive."

  She pressed a hand to her mouth, feeling like she would vomit again. Her stomach had to be empty by now. Jiro had had someone watching her. Why couldn't he come to the house earlier, before Odell had slammed his fist into the side of her head? And before she had cracked the bat across his. Suddenly, she realized what the man had said. Only one of the men remained alive.

  Clawing her way to her feet, she braced herself for the news of just which man was still breathing. She was either a murderer or the cause of an innocent man being killed, someone whose only crime had been to be attracted to her. If Odell was alive, it might mean she was not free of him, probably never would be.

  The living room was a disaster area. The space, only big enough for a love seat, now held that piece of furniture upside down. A flashback surged th
rough her mind, of Odell shoving her over it to land flat on her back with him squeezing her by the neck. She shoved the thought aside.

  Blood spattered the wall, and a bucket sat beneath it, but there was no sign of either Odell or Junior. She noticed the side door stood open, and beyond it a car was parked a few inches away. That area was not a driveway, and some ridiculous thought hit her that her neighbor's wife would have a fit tomorrow morning because of her smashed flowerbed. But where would she be? In jail?

  The Japanese man who worked for Jiro stepped inside carrying trash bags. “Ms. Jackson,” he began.

  She rubbed her hands along her thighs, only now realizing she was still in her stained nightgown. “I just wanted to know which man is alive, and which is d-de..."

  He dug around in his shirt pocket and pulled out a tiny notebook. She had the feeling he didn't really have to look at his notes. He knew just what had been going on in her life. The feeling that nothing was private was terrifying. “Odell Boyd, alive."

  Kiara's knees crumbled. She hit the floor hard, her face scraping the carpet. Probably with the same lack of emotion he announced everything else, the man moved over top her, grasped her around the waist and carried her against his hip into the bedroom. He deposited her on the bed. At the door, with his hand on the knob, he said, “Please stay here until Fuschida-san arrives."

  She had no choice. She couldn't find the energy to roll over, let alone get up.

  * * * *

  Jiro arrived with efficiency and authority. He had a woman with him, making Kiara wonder if he had found a girlfriend who would stick awhile. But he offered no introduction except to tell Kiara the woman's name. Five minutes after she heard it, she couldn't recall what he had said it was.

  "Kiara.” He touched her cheek when she had nodded off after he began to talk to her. “Wake up for a moment. We have to settle some things, and then I will let you rest. I promise."

  She stared up at him, wondering what he thought of how she looked. Night after night, she dreamed of seeing him again, seeing desire in his eyes when he saw her. His expression was impassive.

  "After you get cleaned up and dressed, we'll leave here and go to a hotel. You'll sleep as long as you want. When you wake up, I'll arrange for you to get something to eat. Then you'll have a few decisions to make. Is that clear?” He had said it all gently and with understanding in his tone, but it still seemed like a command. Her mind wasn't working properly.

  He nodded as if she had agreed, stood and crossed to her bedroom door. He and the woman spoke in Japanese before he left her there, closing the door behind him.

  Kiara blinked at the woman. She offered a shy smile and crossed the room to pull Kiara's nightgown over her head.

  "What are you doing?” Kiara mumbled.

  The woman didn't answer. She tossed the nightgown away and twisted to grab a washcloth in a basin of warm sudsy water, Kiara hadn't noticed before. Very methodical, she washed Kiara and then helped her into clean clothes. After she had helped her brush her teeth, the woman picked up her supplies and left the room.

  A moment later, Jiro came back in to the room. He smiled and stroked her hair. “Ready to go?"

  "As ready as I will ever be. She swallowed. “Jiro, what are you going to do with Junior? Did you call the police? This has to be reported."

  "Leave everything up to me. Your task is to rest and to recover."

  * * * *

  Kiara figured she wouldn't sleep a wink, but after she had drank down the warm milk Jiro had given her as if she were a child, she had dropped off to sleep. Now, in the early morning sunshine, she wouldn't be surprised to learn that he had drugged it to knock her out.

  She had just finished dressing, when a knock sounded at her hotel room door. Upon opening it, she found Jiro standing in the hall with a waiter and a covered cart beside him. Gesturing for them to enter, she turned away.

  When the waiter had finished setting up breakfast, Jiro pulled out a chair at the table in the corner for her to sit down. “Have something to eat. I'm told you were ill before I arrived. You must be starving."

  She hesitated. Here was a man completely different from Odell. She imagined he would not dream of having a woman take care of him, pay his bills. Jiro would consider himself the most dishonorable of men not to see to the needs of the women in his life.

  Instead of sitting down, she stood where she was, lost in thought. “Before I got involved with Odell, I was independent. I knew early on that my cousin resented having to take care of me, so the first chance I got to get away and stand on my own two feet, I took it. Money my parents left me went to my getting my Bachelors degree in fine arts. I did okay with that for a while."

  Tears filled her eyes, and she tried her best to blink them away only to have them flood her lids and spill down her cheeks. “First I had to work like a dog for nothing because Odell took away everything, including my dignity. And now you want me to depend on you. Admit it!"

  He strode over to her, took her hand and guided her to the table. “What I want you to do is eat something, even if it's only a small bit of egg.” He poured out a half glass of orange juice and sat it in front of her. “I want to you drink this. It's delicious, fresh-squeezed without pulp.” He smiled.

  Only the rich.

  Glancing pointedly at her plate, he dipped his head forward. “And then we will talk."

  She would never win. There was no use trying to fight against him. Resolute, she filled her plate. Jiro had been right of course. Not only was the juice delicious, so was everything else she sampled. And before she knew it, her belly was full. She had been more hungry than she realized. When she finally placed her fork beside her plate and wiped her mouth with her napkin, Jiro nodded in satisfaction.

  "I want you to know, Kiara, that whatever decision you make today, I will honor your wishes.” He compressed his lips a minute before speaking again. She got the impression the one decision she might make that he didn't like, was a hard one for him to swallow. “I will do whatever you ask. However, I want you to be sure that you will have no regrets."

  She started. “Regrets? So you expect me to ask you to kill Odell, since he didn't die from me hitting him over the head?"

  "That is merely one possibility."

  "And the others?"

  "You could go back to your present life, working in that diner where you were.” She gasped, but he continued. “As all the other failed attempts, you could try to start somewhere new, expecting that he won't find you. And yet he does."

  A shiver ran through her, and her tears threatened to start up again. She waited silently, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. She wouldn't have know what to say at that point anyway. Better to just sit and listen to what he had to offer. Asking him to kill Odell was most certainly off the table. Wasn't it?

  "Another option might be...” He cleared his throat. “Another might be if you were to become my mistress. I would take care of you. You would live on my property and be guarded by my men. This would entail a complete removal from the lifestyle that Odell is used to finding you in. We move in vastly different circles. In essence, you would be safe from him forever."

  His mistress! In truth, she couldn't have expected more than that. They hadn't known each other long, and the only sure thing between them was that they were sexually attracted to one another. She let her gaze roam over his taut muscles, clearly defined after he had removed his jacket. A woman could lose herself in a man as strong—as magnetic—as Jiro. That's what she was so terrified of.

  Still, unreasonably, she felt insulted at the suggestion, like she wasn't worth anything more than that position in his life.

  Jiro seemed to read her mind. “It's not that I don't care enough for you to make you more than my lover, but it's wise for us both to take it slower than that. Under normal circumstances, we would date, but you need my protection. I have an estate, several in fact, where you can live. Ayumi lives there also and a few others in my family's employ."

>   "What would your family think about it?"

  "It's not uncommon to have mistresses, although most of the time, they live somewhere else or in one of the smaller houses, not in the main house.” His lips pressed into a straight line, determination entering his expression. “You will be—are—different."

  "Says you.” She sighed. These people were out of her league, even Ayumi. Their money allowed them to live a life she could not even dream of. His description of his estate made her think of the show on TV she used to watch when it first debuted called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. And would his grandfather also be there, a man she imagined was steeped in traditions. What kind of slap in the face would Jiro be giving the old man bringing home a black woman to live in his house?

  Yet, this was her only option. She could not give an order to kill Odell even if she did wish he was dead. That would make her a killer. She gasped, remembering Jiro's profession. Her stomach churned, and the food she had just downed felt like it was coming back up. I'm in negotiations to give away my body to a cold-blooded killer. Even as she thought it, she knew she would do it. She would give herself to Jiro. Just the thought excited her, made her wish she was lying with him right now, in bed.

  She parted her lips in a soft gasp, and a thrill hit her seeing that Jiro noticed. He was affected also. Maybe he was praying she would decide on being his mistress. How could she live with this? This decision too meant possible regrets, turning her head when she knew he was off on an assignment to murder someone. And opening her arms and her bed to him when he returned. It was all too much, too unreal.

  "All roads lead to...” She didn't finish the sentence. There was no point. “Okay, I've made my decision,” she told him quietly. “I will be your lover."

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