Amy Yamada - Bedtime Eyes

By now the girl would be feeling good, and she would moan softly to let him know, thinking that his fingers were nothing more than tools to give her pleasure. Then, when she was finally reaching ecstasy, Leroy would whisper lie after sweet lie in a low, husky voice, all the while knowing that he could have given her so much more pleasure if he had wanted to. He would feel frustrated with himself for holding back, but he would also be relieved that he had pulled it off.

In the end the girl would believe that she had experienced the ultimate in carnal pleasure, and she would be grateful to him, never knowing how much more had been possible.

I accepted everything about Leroy. If he were mine, I would even have lapped up the last drop of his sweat. I’d been pissed off because I lost a fingernail when I buried it in D.C.’s shoulder, but if it were Leroy, I would have liked to smash my nails with a hammer, bury them in his flesh, and leave them there as evidence. My hair, on the other hand, was too transient for that—the strands tangled up in his fingers during sex were too easily removed.

Leroy was living in an apartment he was subletting from one of his musician friends, and when I phoned he usually answered very curtly.

Once, however, he was actually pleasant. He said he was too busy to go out, and he invited me to come over. I was surprised by his sudden, unexpected invitation, but he told me that it was okay because it wasn’t his place anyway—typical Leroy—and he gave me the address.

I rang the bell and heard his voice from the other side of the door.

“Come in!”

I opened the door timidly.

It was a big, sparsely furnished room with a piano at one end.

Leroy’s suitcase was laid out on top of the bed, and sheet music was scattered all over the floor. Nothing else particularly caught my eye. He sat at the piano, and without looking up said, “Wait over there.”

I found an empty spot under the open window. Leroy had a pencil in his hand and was writing on the lined music paper. He tapped the keys intermittently with his index finger, concentrating hard, like a small child playing a difficult tune. I leaned my elbows on the bed, and with my chin in my hands, fixed my eyes on him.

Once in a while he stopped writing altogether and put his cheek down against the keyboard, remaining there in perfect silence, his lips pursed thoughtfully, obviously not quite satisfied with what he had written. I had the urge to go over and put my arms around his neck and hold him, but then suddenly he would look up with a flash of inspiration and begin tapping the keys again, followed by furious notations.

The sun was going down and a breeze blew in through the window, gently ruffling my hair. I had been soaked with perspiration when I walked in, but now it had dried and felt like part of my skin. I stayed where I sat behind him, staring at his back. Leroy had made the mistake of forgetting that I was there.

Suddenly he struck his head on the keyboard and kept it there, motionless. He looked absolutely desperate.

“Why…?” he whispered. “ Shit! Shit! SH-I-I-I-T!”

He banged his head again and again against the keyboard, strange, mutant chords belching out from the piano, echoing around the room.

The keyboard was wet with his tears.

I didn’t know what to say. My mind was screaming, This is your chance! This is your chance to escape! Do it! Do it now! I knew that if I got up, went over, and put my hand on his shoulder and held his head in my arms, I would finally be able to escape the torture. All I needed to do was to say in a gentle voice, “Are you okay?” and he would fall into my arms, sobbing quietly on my chest, kissing me.

My heart was pounding so loud I could hear it, and I found it difficult to breathe. My whole body tensed and I just sat there in the background, rooted to the spot.

“Why can’t I do it? Why? Why? Why?”

Leroy’s voice echoed in my head.

The next thing I knew, Leroy was back at the piano again. The room was getting dark and the only thing I could see was the eerie, blue-white hue of the sheet music scattered on the floor. I looked closer. Every single sheet of paper overflowed with Leroy’s illegible handwriting.

He played with passion now, not just tapping at the keys with his index finger as he had before, but deftly conjuring the melody, both hands weaving across the keyboard, the piano giving voice to his new composition.

I had missed my only chance to get away.

When I got back to the apartment, D.C. was lying on the bed.

I He jumped up when he saw me and poured me a glass of chocolate milk from the fridge.

He stood by me, watching as I changed my clothes.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked. “You’re acting weird.”

“Ruiko…” His voice was shaking. “Have you found someone else?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Things aren’t the same anymore. You’re always so nice to me these day ”

“Does that bother you?”

I pulled my earrings out irritably and bunched my hair up at the back so he could unzip my dress. I often let him unzip me, but it was completely different from how Leroy did it.

I began to wonder if I had left any clues that he might have picked up on. We hadn’t made love recently, but that was because I found it difficult to hurt D.C. right after being hurt myself by Leroy. And after being in bed with Leroy, D.C. made love too gently.

“I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“You have scratches on your back.”

“I bumped into something, okay? It was an accident.”

“Do you really think I’m that stupid?” he yelled, throwing me down on the bed. “You’re always completely exhausted when you get home and all you do is sit there, staring into space with tears in your eyes. You used to be so selfish and vain—and so happy. But now look at you!

You’d never have let me push you around like this before. What’s got into you?!”

“Sometimes I like being pushed around—you’ve just never noticed it before.”

D.C. began to cry, stroking my cheek with the back of his hand.

“Ruiko…”

He brushed one of his tears from my lip.

“I can smell him on you.”

I lay still on the bed. Although he was crying, I didn’t feel annoyed with him the way I had before—this time I felt sorry for him. He couldn’t get what he wanted. But then, neither could I, so I understood how he felt. D.C. wanted my heart in the same way that I wanted Leroy s fingers, so I could sympathize with him because I knew how hard it was to be in love with something you just couldn’t have.

I stroked his face gently, and gave up trying to deceive him. We were both in the same boat now.

“I didn’t think you’d notice. I never imagined you’d be able to smell him.”

“Are you going to leave me?”

I had no response to that.

“Oh god, I know you are. You’ll dump me like you dumped Leroy Jones,” he sobbed.

Like Leroy Jones.

I know how you feel, D.C. But what D.C. still didn’t know was that it was Leroy who was the cause of all our misery, the root of all our problems and for the first time I realized just how stupid I had been. And now we were both in pain, hurting in exactly the same way that Leroy had been hurt all that time ago.

I felt as though D.C. and I were gradually turning into the same kind of people, the kind of people I used to despise.

“Show me your hand, D.C.”

He stretched out a big, innocent hand and I gently wrapped both of mine around it. His skin was shining; it looked as though it might melt and dissolve into my own. It could never make my blood churn like Leroy’s hands did. Lifting it to my lips, I kissed it gently. D.C. flinched in surprise and pulled away from me.