Ryu Murakami - Piercing

His heartbeat quickened as these thoughts raced through his mind. He was leaning against the wall in the vestibule outside the bathroom now, taking the gloves off and putting them back on and growing agitated. What the hell was she doing in there — shampooing, maybe?

What bothered him most was the faraway look he’d seen in the girl’s eyes. Those restless, disconnected, oddly glazed eyes. It seemed to Kawashima that he’d met a woman with eyes like that before, but he didn’t try to remember who she was. He had nothing but unpleasant memories of all the women in his past, with the single exception of Yoko.

‘You all right in there?’ he said, knocking on the bathroom door.

I’m fine! came the reply. Just a little while longer! The voice was high-pitched and the intonation oddly warped, like a cassette tape coming unreeled. He could still hear the shower.

My lipstick’s crooked, Chiaki had thought when she first looked in the bathroom mirror. You have to take extra special care with lipstick. She rubbed violently at her mistake with a tissue, pressing hard enough almost to bruise her lips, but they’d already lost the capacity to feel anything. She took off her dress, folded it, shook it out and refolded it several times before setting it on the counter next to the sink, then went through the same routine with her slip. She turned on the shower and slowly twisted the handle from C to H until the air filled with steam, then felt the water with her hand and gave a little cry. It was scalding. She turned the handle slowly back towards C before checking the temperature again, cupping the other hand under the water. She went back and forth between H and C a dozen or more times, alternating hands, and then returned to the mirror, leaving the shower running and steam billowing into the room.

As she undid her bra, she remembered that she’d been in high school when the Nightmare first happened. It was only at times like this, when it started up again, that she could really remember what it was like.

Her second year of high school. She and some class-mates had gathered at the house of one whose parents weren’t home, and they’d ended up watching a pornographic video. The tape hadn’t been rewound and came on in the middle of a hardcore sex scene. She didn’t know how long she’d watched it, but she remembered that at some point her stomach had begun to hurt and then, suddenly, she was consumed with a nameless terror. It was as if someone were flashing a strobe light in her face, and a completely different scene unfolded before her eyes.

That was the first episode, but now she’d been visited by the Nightmare a total of seven times. Losing her sex drive, it always started with that. She knew she was in trouble when she could look at a really hot guy without thinking where she’d like to lick him, or where she’d like to feel his tongue. The blood vessels or nerves or whatever would shut down, and all the hungry yearning, no longer able to make its way to the surface or connect with her libido, would begin accumulating deep inside — though she couldn’t have said exactly where. And this condition would continue for the longest time. Once, it had gone on for nine hundred and thirty-eight days. To cope with the anxiety, she’d sometimes try to have sex with someone — anyone — but it always felt as if the man’s penis wasn’t in her vagina or anus but a completely different sort of hole. Orgasm was out of the question, and there were even times when she ended up not knowing where she was or what she was doing. Or, worse yet, she’d have the creepy sensation that What’s-her-name was up on the ceiling, watching.

Of course, Chiaki thought as she rolled her panties down, I know perfectly well who What’s-her-name is. What’s-her-name is me, watching myself have sex. At first I used to ask her not to look at me like that, but all she would do is snicker, so I stopped. Besides, I was afraid that if I talked to her too much I might divide into two separate people.

She thought about the man in the cheap suit, and wondered if he was a cleanliness freak. He never let go of that handkerchief, she thought, not even for a second. Men like that are sick. What they really love is dirty stuff, and doing disgusting things. You-know-who was like that, too. You-know-who? Wait a minute. Who am I thinking of? He always wore a newly laundered and starched white shirt, with trousers creased to perfection, and no matter where he went he had his white handkerchief. Somebody once teased him about that, saying he looked like an old lady at a funeral, but he said a starched white shirt and clean white hanky always made him feel that even his heart was as pure and clean as the driven snow.

He was my father. He liked to do filthy things. When I was in elementary school he even told me not to bathe. I really love you, Chiaki. So I want to lick all the dirt off you myself. It might feel really good, but there’s nothing to be afraid of. You mustn’t tell anyone about this, though. It’s our secret. Don’t even tell Mama. If anyone finds out, they’ll take you away from Mama and me, so never, ever tell anyone, OK?

But I did, finally. In middle school I told my friend about it, and then I told Mama too. Mama talked to him, and he was standing there in his white shirt, twisting his white handkerchief and listening to all these things she was saying, and then suddenly he started yelling at me. How dare you make up such a disgusting lie! That was the first time I ever heard him raise his voice, but it certainly wasn’t the last. After that, he turned into a different person, someone who was always yelling about every little thing. My heart is as pure and clean as the driven snow. Pure and clean as the driven snow. Pure and clean as the driven snow . Don’t make me laugh.

‘No more words,’ Chiaki muttered to herself, and just then a voice spoke to her from beyond the door.

‘You all right in there?’

‘Fine!’ she called out. ‘I’m fine. Just a little while longer!’

Just a little while longer and all the words would be gone. It was only when you actually experienced words vanishing that you realised how dry and lifeless they were, like dead leaves or old, discarded money. You could spend hours flattening out all the wrinkles and creases, but when you tried to buy something with those bills, no one would accept them. They wouldn’t even take you seriously. You clench your fist in anger, and the bills just crackle and crumble apart in your hand.

Just before words vanish they acquire a sickening pulpy smell, like clumps of dead grass whipped by the wind into dry little spheres, and they spill from the brain and the vocal cords, down through the blood vessels and nerves to the deepest, farthest corners of your body. Words the size of pachinko balls or Tic-Tacs, vanishing as they roll off into the hidden crannies, where they bump into these other things and awaken them. These memories.

Memories aren’t like words; they’re soft and gooey. Covered with a sticky slime, like a penis after sex, or your vagina when you menstruate, and shaped like tadpoles or tiny watersnakes. When these sleeping memories are awakened, they begin to squirm and then to swim, slowly at first but gradually faster, up to the surface. And once they get there, your senses shut down. The first wave hits you in the lips, then the palms of the hands, the toes, and under the arms. Some of the memories escape through the pores of your skin to hang about your body like a mist, waiting for the rest to swim up and join them. Once they’re all there, they come together to form an image, and it’s like a television screen being switched on before your eyes.

His face as he licks me down there. His face. A face like a bundle of rotting vegetables wrapped in an old rag. I love you, he whispers. He keeps whispering this as he licks and licks and licks. I love you. I love you. I love you, Love you. Love you. Love you. Love you. Love you. Love you . Then another voice, blending with his. A little girl’s voice. My voice.