The Cost To Play (Slivers of Love) (11 page)

“Who does she think she is anyway?” he asked himself. 

Twenty minutes later, in the down pour of rain, he put the box in his pocket and began to stumble his way to her building. He took a short cut through the tennis courts, around the guest house, and over the hill, finding himself at her doorstep.

He banged on the door, calling her name. “Jayne LaQueeda Wright! You open this damned door right now!”

              The man was soaked from head to toe, rain droplets hanging from the strands of his hair, and he looked absolutely adorable to Jayne.  At least he did until his opened his mouth, exhaling 32 proof breath fueled with liquid courage and a jealous temper tantrum.

“Is he in there Jayne?”

“Is who in where?”

Toshi was teetering from side to side. “You know who Jayne. Your new fiancé!” She had no idea what he was talking about, but in those wet clothes he was going to catch a serious cold.

“Toshi, let’s talk inside,” she told him. She reached for him to pull him across the threshold.  Toshi snatched his arm away like a kid on the playground in a game of keep away.

“If he is in there Jayne, I going to kick him in his dick!” Jayne tried to grab him again, but he skirted away from her, bending down with his hands on his knees, getting louder with every word. “He can’t make love to you Jayne with a broke dick! I am going to break his dick Jayne!”  Toshi began making karate chops in the air while simulating groin kicks, supplemented with Bruce Lee sounds.

Ms. Betty, her neighbor opened her door. “Jayne, is everything okay out there?”

She ran out of her apartment while grabbing Toshi by the arm. “Yes ma’am. Everything is fine.”

“You sure? I got the po-po on speed dial!” She had her fingers on her medical alert necklace.  Jayne held up her hand to hold her off. “I got him Ms. Betty. You can go back inside.”

It was a struggle to get a drunken 160 pound man into her apartment, especially with him being uncooperative, yelling, and threatening to open a can of Japanese dick kicking.  He clearly outweighed her by 45 pounds, but she needed to get him out of those wet clothes. He kicked off his own shoes when he stepped inside the door and removed his wet jacket letting it flop to the floor.

“I’ve been working on my filters Jayne, working hard too. Look what it got me!” He stood still as she pulled the wet shirt up and over his head, rubbing his skin briskly with one of the towels she had taken from the guest bathroom to warm up his cold skin. “I have been working on being a better man for you too Jayne.”   As he rambled on about filters and his quest to be better, Jayne’s focus was on how she was going to get off those wet pants.

The towel was draped about his shoulders. “How much have you had to drink Toshi?”

“I don’t drink,” he said through hiccups.

“What did you sip on tonight then,” she asked while going into the bathroom to retrieve a larger bath towel.  Maybe if she held up the towel, he could remove pants allowing her to wrap the material about his waist.

“I had a little bit of Sake. That’s all.” This was said as he tried to stand still, while weaving from side to side.

Jayne opened the towel wide, covering him from the waist down, while asking him to remove his pants. “How much is a little?”

He laughed as the pants dropped down around his ankles. “The whole damn bottle, Jayne.  The whole bottle!” He plopped down on the futon in her office with his bottom lip poked out. “I was trying to wash down the feelings.”

Before Jayne went any further, she heeded her Grammy’s words,
a man full of the Devil’s brew, will tell the truth on him and you
.  Something was definitely wrong, because Toshi normally treated his body like a temple and was not one for drinking anything stronger than wine or tea. The man didn’t even drink soda. If he downed a whole bottle of Sake, then something heavy was weighing him down.  If she was going to get some answers, now would be the best time. ‘Toshi, what feelings were you trying to drown?”

He raised his hand as if he were the first one to solve the tough math problem the teacher had placed on the board. “That’s the word, drown.  I was trying to drown these feelings Jayne.”

She had kneeled on the floor beside him noticing how developed his calf muscles were. “Tell me what the feelings were that you tried to drown.”  She spoke slowly feeling like an ass for taking advantage of the circumstance.

“I was feeling jealous!  I am jealous, okay Jayne!” She watched a highly educated, distinguished man, fold his arms across his chest and poke out his bottom lip.

“Are you pouting, Toshi?”

He raised his chin in indignation. “No.” 

Then thought about it a bit. “Yes.” Dropping his chin to his chest as if in defeat. Jayne pulled her office chair over in front of the futon and sat facing him with his, sad, bloodshot eyes looking at her. “It’s not fair.” He leaned back on the futon exposing well-toned and much developed muscled thighs.  The towel had fallen down from around his shoulders, exposing a solid chest with perfect pecks and abs which were rock solid.  The towel around his waist has also shifted revealing a thin strand of smooth black hair that started under his navel creeping a path underneath the second towel. Her eyes trailed downward, wanting to know more.  Jayne grabbed his wet clothing to put in the dryer, removing herself from the temptation to look.  Damn that man was sexy.

“Okay, I have your clothes in the dryer.  I brought you a pillow and a blanket.  Sit in the chair here while I put a sheet on the futon.” He did as he was told, watching her while she worked.

“Jayne, it isn’t fair.”

She continued to work. “What’s not fair Toshi?”

His hand touched the back of her thigh causing Jayne to nearly jump out of her skin. “I touch you like a man.  I kiss you like a man and when you are ready…” he hiccupped loudly. “…I will make love to you like a man. My skin tone shouldn’t matter. In the dark, it won’t anyway.”

He laughed again. “When you are screaming my name in the middle of your ecstasy, you ain’t gonna give a flying dragon about the color of my damned skin!” A loud hiccup escaped him. “Oops, filter down! Filter down!”  He said it as if giving the warning call of a man overboard.

Jayne saw the obvious pain in his face. With her hands on the towel about his waist, she helped him back onto the futon. The rubber band was removed from his hair, allowing the tresses to fall about his shoulders as she toweled the locks dry.  There was no sense in having this conversation with a man who was not in full control of his faculties. Toshi reacted as if he had a
eureka
moment. “I know what it is Jayne. I know what it is.”

He leaned forward and poked her in the nose with his finger. “You won’t make love to me because you think all Asian men have a small dinky.” Jayne’s eyes got wide, as she prayed that he would not stand up and try to show her his dinky, or anything else. 

“It’s not true. Not all Asian men are cursed with a small dinky.” He sat there staring into the bathroom door, with his head cocked like the RCA dog, then he squinted his eyes. “Well, not completely untrue.” He broke into laughter. “I walked in the bathroom on P
hở
one time and that man is truly cursed.” He laughed harder, holding up his pinky finger. “But don’t tell him I told you his secret. He has a minky, inky, pinky dinky! It don’t even hang.”

He laughed
again, leaning back onto the rear of the futon. His face suddenly turned serious. Jayne was trying to figure out what would be said the morning after all of this nonsense. “Jayne, I have a nice dinky.”

That was her cue to lock him in this room and leave.  He tried to caress her lips with his fingers, but only ended up poking her in the chin with his index finger.

“I know how to use it too!”  He scrunched up his face as if he were telling her a family secret recipe. “My dinky is not small.” He crinkled his nose while processing another thought. “Well it would appear to be small if you put it next to a big black dude’s, but I am perfectly proportioned!” He pointed both index fingers at her as if shooting mock pistols.  He then jumped up off the futon, with the towel hitting the floor. “Would you like to see what’s behind door number two Jayne?”

She turned her head while yelling at him. “No, Toshi! Put the towel back on!” He ignored her words and walked around her to the hallway to get his wet coat. The black silk briefs he wore left little to the imagination, as he returned with a small grey box in his hands.  He nearly missed the futon as he sat back down.  Jayne quickly placed the towel over his lap to cover his lower half.

“I am opening my heart to you Jayne.” He handed her the Kay’s box.  She opened it to find a necklace with two open hearts in a Yin and Yang shape.

“I realize you were the Yin to my Yang,” he mumbled as he laid back on the futon. “I want it all Jayne and I want it with you.” And with that said, Toshi had passed out.

She stared at the diamond encrusted necklace feeling her heart open as well.  Her spirit was now open to a drunken Japanese man, who had fallen asleep on her futon, wearing nothing more than a pair of drawers. What would her Grammy say if she saw this?

Jayne woke to the smell of sizzling bacon, the sound of coffee perking, and a very confused Japanese man standing over her stove.

“Good morning,” he said as her poured her a cup of coffee. “I hope you slept well.”

“I did, thank you.”

Toshi added scrambled eggs along with the bacon slices and a toasted English muffin to a plate and sat it on the table for Jayne.  He poured two glasses of orange juice and joined her for breakfast.  After blessing the food he opened the conversation feeling foolish for waking up in his underwear in her apartment. “Would you like to discuss last night?”

“No,” she said as she sipped at her coffee.

It had not escaped his attention that she was not mad, nor was she throwing him out the door. Around her neck she wore his gift. A bevvy of mixed emotions flooded his chest. One began with the excitement of seeing her wearing his present, but secondly, he felt disheartened that he had not personally placed it about her neck. 
Wait!  She’s wearing it!  She didn’t get engaged to that other man
?

Jayne’s hand went to the necklace, allowing her fingers to run absently over the hearts. “Last night was my first and last date with him.  He was attempting to run a game on me and I outplayed his hand.” She slid her hand into the pocket of her robe and removed a green box.  Toshi opened it to find inside a silver link bracelet which connected with black and yellow koi fishes in a Yin and Yang pattern. Jayne secured it about his wrist.

“I had bought this for you earlier, but I am confused about what that whole drunken display was last night, Toshi,” she said as she watched his face take in the surprise of her gift.

Toshi’s chest tightened as if it were swelling with something he didn’t fully understand.  “My feelings for you are running deeper than I had initially realized and it scared me a bit.”

Jayne still said nothing as she ate her breakfast. He was feeling vulnerable and she knew it, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook for using booze to get his courage up to come and talk to her about what he was feeling.  A real man doesn’t do that. “Did you think that loading up on liquid courage was what you needed to come and talk to me?”

Toshi shook his head. “I have made no qualms about my feelings for you.  I made those clear the first, second, third, and fourth times I ran into you.  However…” he said as he sipped at his tea. “Since spending some real time with you these past months, I have learned to also appreciate the woman. Thereby, altering how I feel about you.”

It wasn’t working for Jayne. A man who needs to get drunk to deal with his feelings was one she did not need in her life or in her bed. The problem she was facing, was the simple truth that she liked him. She liked him a lot. “Getting drunk and charging over here like a drunken bull in a china shop was the solution for you to deal with your feelings?”

Toshi was shaking his head no. “I was coming over here to fight for you.”

Jayne’s jaw dropped, then she remembered. “Oh yeah. You were going to kick him in the dick.”

His eyebrows shot up. “What?”

Jayne pursed her lips as if to demonstrate how far over this whole thing she was. “Yes, Dr. Yamaguchi. You screamed loud enough for everyone in the building to hear it.
He can’t make love to you with a broke dick, Jayne
!”

Neither of them coul
d help, but burst into laughter; the whole thing was so silly. She couldn’t find it in herself to be mad at him, plus he had come to fight
for
her.  Jayne thought that was simply archaic, Neanderthal-
ish
, and totally romantic.

“I have dreamed about creating this comic book for so long and seeing it come to life is rather scary. I meet you and it feels like everything I ever wanted is approaching fruition all at once. Then I get a phone call telling me you are in a restaurant on Valentine’s Day with some dude, saying that you would marry him. I had to deal with my first experience of jealously, as well as the possibility of someone coming along and sweeping you off your feet and taking you from me, before I’ve even had a real chance to woo and win your heart. Jayne,
I
want to be your man.”

Jayne listened to what he was saying. Inside, she had butterflies flitting all over at his words. He wanted to woo and win her? It was dreamy.  She liked it more than she could ever admit, but she could not let him off the hook that easy for his behavior. “Jayne, say something.  Call me stupid.  Say I’m immature, selfish, a prick…something. Just talk to me.”

“Toshi, we are business partners.  If you and I are never anything else to each other, we are partners on this comic book. The rest we will have to sort out.”

He swallowed hard. “I understand.”

“Also understand that if you ever show up on my doorstep drunk again, I am going to personally call the police on you.”

“I understand,” he said again. “Are you going to hold it over my head?”

“Are you going to try and show me your dinky again?”

He scratched the side of his neck, then his shoulder, and she saw his cheeks turn red.  “I did not say that!”

She nodded her head slowly. He lowered his head in shame. Jayne could not help but give him a good swift kick while he was down. “You assured me that it was a very nice dinky and you knew how to use it.”

It was uncertain if he was cursing himself, or cursing at her, but he lapsed into Japanese as he paced the floor in her dining room.  He cleared the table, washed the dishes, and put on his coat, still talking out loud in his familial language. Jayne watched in amusement with a smirk on her face. Finally, when he had calmed down, he faced her with his head lowered. “I am sorry for dishonoring you with such talk and behavior.  I understand if you never want to see me again. I am truly sorry for showing you such disrespect.”

Jane grabbed him by the front of his still wet jacket.  “I have to see you again, Toshi.”

He raised his head to look her in the eyes. “Why is that?”

“You told me that you were working on being a better man. Based on I what I did see, I agree with you. It looks like a rather nice dinky. I look forward to getting to know it and you a lot better.”  A small smile returned to his face as she kissed him before sending him on his way.