“That’s what I thought about.”
I turn back to face him. Without the glow of the light from their kitchen, his eyes are blacker than normal. “And?”
He continues like I haven’t spoken. “Before I met you, I would’ve said no.”
“But now?”
“I think I have to.”
“To see for yourself.” My voice is low.
“What if I’m just like him, Zosia? And why don’t I know for sure?”
He doesn’t want me to answer, and I fight every instinct in me that wants to say, “You’re not.” Because I don’t know. I know what I want him to be, but it doesn’t make it so.
I reach my hand up to his face in the dark and stroke his cheek, tracing his lips. His arms loosen, and his hand grazes my neck and then my bare shoulder, down the length of my arm, back up over my thigh, my stomach, my breast. My robe falls open, and he pushes it out of the way until it’s a puddle around my feet. He pulls me into him and his mouth is hot on mine and I’m drowning in him.
I lose track of what happens next in what order. We’re on the balcony and on the living room floor and in my bed. I end up straddled across his lap, him slick and hard in my hand. It’s where we left off at the love hotel, but this time he thrusts into my hand and kisses me so hard I have to wrench myself away so I can breathe.
He buries his face in my neck. His hands clutch my ass tighter to him. “I love you so much, Zosia. So goddamn much.”
My hand tightens around him, and he bucks against it. I urge him on, stroking him faster. Harder. His stomach tenses and I know he’s close, but suddenly he lifts me off of him and hovers above me until the tip of his penis nudges against me. My eyes widen in surprise, but before I can think about that, he kisses his way down my body, his head stopping between my legs.
The first flick of his tongue sets off a cascade of sensations that explode at my core and reach to my toes. I gasp, and he does it again. I feel the beginning of my climax building already. I want it. I do. But there’s something I want more.
I ease out from under Finn’s hands, and it’s my turn to drape myself over him, kissing his lips, his neck, the hard muscles of his chest. I run my tongue over his stomach, nipping at his skin with my teeth, before moving lower.
His penis is reddish-purple, throbbing. It looks huge this close up, and when I run my tongue around the tip, I’m not sure I’m actually going to be able to take it in my mouth. I expect him to stop me. This is on his “no fly” list, too. He lets me taste him for another minute before pulling me up to kiss me. “You can’t do that for much longer,” he says roughly.
“Or what?” I ask, reaching between his legs with my hand.
He bites my shoulder. “Or I’m going to come all over you.”
I trail kisses down his chest. “Good.”
This time when I take him back in my mouth, he’s ready. I feel the desire building in him, like a rubber band stretching tighter and tighter. Until it breaks and he shudders, calling out my name loud enough to wake the sleeping baby across the alley.
When we finally lie still, the first light is rising, so it’s at least five. Finn’s fingers lace with mine, and he squeezes them.
“I think we need to wash the sheets.”
They’re damp with a combination of sweat and saliva and everything else. I roll off the bed, and he lifts the corner of the sheet when he gets up. There’s a wet spot on the pink futon underneath, and he winces.
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.” I walk out to the kitchen to throw the sheets in the washer, and he follows.
“Do you want a shower? I’m all over you.” He seems embarrassed, which is the last thing I expect. We’ve been engaged in this elaborate foreplay for weeks now and, granted, it’s usually not so intense, but it’s not something either of us have been embarrassed about.
“What’s wrong?” He opens his mouth, but I don’t let him speak. “Please don’t tell me you regret that or…”
He shakes his head before I can finish. “I don’t regret it.”
“What then?”
“I feel like I lost control.”
“Wasn’t that the point?” I ask, grinning.
“Was it?” He grins, too, but I can tell he doesn’t really mean it.
I wrap my arms around his neck. “It was
my
point.”
“Bad idea.”
“Good idea.” I’ll be damned if I let him ruin this. “Don’t you know how much I love seeing you when you forget who you think you are?”
He lifts me up onto the washing machine, and the way he kisses me and my legs wrap around his waist, I think for a second we’re going to have sex after all. Right there. I’m about to pull him into me, and I think maybe he’s going to let me because he’s that close.
Instead he draws away and leads me back to bed, where we kiss, so long and slow and tender it feels like everything beautiful in the world is here in this room.
C
onsidering what happens after, my dad bursting into my bedroom the next morning to find Finn and I sleeping naked together is nothing, even if the covers are tangled down around our legs and I’m sure he gets an eyeful. And even if the look on his face makes it pretty clear he wants to kill me.
“You need to get up. Both of you.” His voice is tight, and he throws Finn’s T-shirt in before he closes the door with another terse, “Get up, Zo. Now.”
I scramble into the nearest shorts and T-shirt I can find. I shoot Finn a look, but he doesn’t see me as he pulls his own shirt over his head. He’s the one who opens the door, who goes first into the living room to meet Dad’s angry eyes and Eloise’s pursed mouth.
“Greg, this is my—” he starts.
Dad cuts him off. “Were you in Shibuya last night?” Finn and I both nod. “At the Happy Dream Love Hotel?”
“Dad, it wasn’t what you think.” I want him to stop looking at Finn that way.
He ignores me. “What time did you leave?”
“Around nine,” Finn says. I wait for him to explain further, but he doesn’t.
“Dad, what’s this about?” I just want him to look at me.
“There was an…incident…at the hotel last night. A girl was assaulted. The room was registered to your credit card.” His eyes fix on Finn.
Finn doesn’t look away. “What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. But she reported it and the police came around this morning looking for you. They were at your apartment as we arrived home.”
“Why?”
“They want you to appear in a line-up. They don’t know who did it, except it was a
gaijin
.” Dad finally looks at me. “You’d already left. They said it happened around ten, but you’d already left.”
Finn bites the inside of his lip and shakes his head. “Zosia and I had an argument. I left, but I went back. I don’t know what time. We still had the room. I paid for two hours, and I went back because I hoped she was still there.”
I left a little after nine and wandered around Shibuya, half-looking for Finn, before catching the 20:10 train home. I open my mouth to speak, but Eloise beats me to it, her tone clipped.
“Now isn’t the time for half the story, Finn.”
“What do you want me to say? I don’t know what time it was. Zosia wasn’t there. I left and walked back from Shibuya and came here.” His voice is still even, but his fist clenches. He hasn’t looked at me since we woke up, maybe not even then.
“You walked?” Eloise asks.
I wonder the same thing. Shibuya is far. “Yes. I bought a Coke somewhere along the way, but I’m not sure where. That’s it.” Finn nods at my dad. “I should shower. Do you mind?”
“Go ahead. We need to leave in fifteen minutes.”
Finn goes toward the bathroom and turns his head in my direction, although he doesn’t look at me. “I’ll only be a minute.”
When he closes the door, Dad says, “You need to tell me what happened, Zosia. The truth.”
“Exactly what he said, Dad.”
“What did you argue about?”
“Stuff.” I don’t want to tell him. It’s too close.
“Was he upset?” Dad asks.
“We were both upset. We had a fight.” I put my hands on my hips. “You don’t think he did this?” Being mad at me is one thing, but accusing Finn of this is quite another.
“No, but they’re going to ask you if it comes to that.”
Eloise steps toward me as if she’s going to put her hand on my arm and changes her mind. “When did he get here, Zosia?”
“I don’t know. Three?” I hate even saying it. It makes it worse.
The door opens to the bathroom, and Finn steps back in the living room, dressed and rubbing a towel over his hair. “Leave her out of this.”
“That’s not possible,” Eloise says.
“Make it possible. It has nothing to do with her.” He’s so cold toward her. I’ve heard that tone before, but it’s no better when it’s directed at someone else.
“Finn…” I start and then stop. He stares right through me, and there’s no trace of the tenderness that was there last night. Or the passion. Or anything. He doesn’t even act like he knows me. “Wait for me. I’m coming with you.”
“She’s not coming,” he says as I close the bathroom door.
I turn on the water. “She has to,” my dad says.
“I don’t want her to do this.”
“I don’t either. This is exactly why…” Dad snaps and then stops. When he speaks again, his tone is more interrogating. “Is she going to pick you? The girl? Because if she is, you should mention it now before this gets any worse.”
“If she does, it won’t be because I did it. I told you. I left. I went back. I came here. I understand why you think it’s possible. I’d think the same if I were you.”
Their voices move away, and when I come out of the bathroom, Dad and Eloise are on the balcony. The Japanese couple across the alley are up, no sign of the baby. And no sign of Finn until I head back into my room to change my clothes. He’s made the bed sans sheets and put away the stuff we’d strewn around last night. Every trace of him being here has been erased.
“Hey,” I say. “I just need a minute.”
The relief I feel seeing him there is shattered by his tone. Tense. Distant. “I don’t want you to come. I don’t want you to do this.”
“Why?” I pull a dress off the hanger, although I don’t drop my towel and put it on. For how natural that would have been six hours ago, it feels weird now.
“You shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t have to go to a police line-up with someone wondering in the back of your mind if they did it.”
“I’m not wondering if you did it.”
“Funny,” he says in the way people do when they mean anything but. “I sure as fuck would be if I were you.”
He walks out before I can respond and says nothing else. Absolutely nothing. En route to the station he keeps a deliberate distance ahead and I walk close to Dad. Not because Dad has anything to say either, but because the anger is radiating off of him and I don’t want to make it worse. I try to angle to stand by Finn on the train, but he enters through the next set of doors and I end up sitting next to Eloise. I can see Finn through the next two stops before it gets too crowded, and I sigh and lean my head against the window.
“Are you okay?” asks Eloise.
“I don’t know. Are you?”
Eloise seems surprised I’ve asked, but she nods. “It’s a misunderstanding.”
“It’s his worst nightmare.” Of all things, this.
She nods again and I expect her to agree. Instead she says, “You know, when he was little we had this stray cat that lived under our deck. It was a mangy thing; I hated it. Finn used to feed it. He even put a blanket under there so it could make a bed. I’d get so angry with him, forbid him to feed it, take the food away when I saw it. One night I came home from work and he was sitting on the sidewalk. He had Band-Aids and cotton balls and Neosporin spread out all around him. The cat was just lying there, letting him do whatever he was doing. Finn said the cat got into a fight, and he was fixing him. He stayed out there for hours taking care of that cat, petting him and cleaning his scratches. It was the most loyal damn cat in the world after that.”
I can’t decide if she’s telling me this story for my benefit or hers. “Did you still hate it?”
“The cat? No.” She smiles a little. “I still didn’t let it in the house, but Finn said he thought it would rather be outside anyway. I remember he said it like he knew, like he’d talked to the cat to ask what it preferred.”
“Maybe he did.” In my head I can picture Finn as a little boy, kneeling on a sidewalk, talking to a cat. It makes me feel sad.
Eloise can tell, or maybe she feels sad, too. “Maybe he did.” She closes her eyes for a minute. “He’s far from perfect. I know that. He’s stubborn and defensive and impatient. He thinks things are black-and-white. He doesn’t believe in second chances, and once he’s made up his mind, that’s it. But he would not do this.”
I don’t think so either, but it doesn’t matter what we think. I’m not sure why I tell her what I do, except I want her to know I see him. “I had a crush on him, you know, back in high school. He doesn’t know that. He’d probably think it was funny. I thought he was good-looking, like that’s all he was.” It seems so long ago, that crush. He’s not that person at all. Back then he seemed mysterious, aloof, a little bit dangerous, and I felt totally out of my league.
Which is how I feel standing in the police station in Shibuya. A lawyer greets us when we walk in, which surprises me but no one else. He’s British but fluent in Japanese, and he shakes everyone’s hand, including mine, and leads us to a small room where he tells us what to expect. They’ll come for Finn in a few minutes. He’ll accompany him and the rest of us are to wait here. It should be over quickly.
I listen intently at first but stop once he starts repeating himself. The room is small and stuffy, despite the air conditioner wheezing in the corner. Dad stands close to Eloise, asking the lawyer questions. Finn listens, but asks nothing himself. I stare at him, will him to look at me, even though I’m pretty sure he won’t. His baggy tan shorts, a Rolling Stones T-shirt I’d confessed I liked and I know he wore yesterday for me. His hair is longer than usual, dark and soft. The tail of the dragon peeks out from under his shirt-sleeve. He’s tan now so it doesn’t look as stark.
The door scrapes open, and his dark eyes look up. They’re deep and full of sorrow. That’s what I memorize. The way he looks at me.