Piercing by Ryu Murakami Read Free Book Online

ice-pick wound. ‘An unbelievable pain in the ass,’ to use her exact words. Well, he wasn’t holding any grudges. If it turned out to be her, all he needed to say was Long time no see. And maybe ask about the scar.
    He decided to allow himself a little more whisky. After all, his urge to call an S&M club had vanished now that the thirty-eight-year-old was on her way. He opened the third minature bottle and poured it into his glass, his mind replaying the smooth voice’s last words: Quite a few . Beyond the window-pane, veiled with condensation, was the glittering expanse of late-night Tokyo. From up here, the people on the street looked like moving dots. He’d recently watched a daytime talk show with the theme: Young men who can love only women their mothers’ age . A psychologist in a bow-tie had expounded that ‘it’s a perversion of sorts, certainly, an elaboration of the so-called Peter Pan syndrome, and though the symptoms are distinct the pathology is basically the same as that of young men who sexually molest little girls; neither type has the ability to make or maintain normal, healthy relationships.’ In other words, men who were attracted to much older women were sick and abnormal. If I accomplish my mission, Kawashima thought to himself, I’ll go after that psychologist next, for talking such absolute shit.
    The boys in the Home had rarely spoken to one another. He’d roomed with Taku-chan for two years, but it was only shortly before he was released from the place that they’d had conversations of any length. And not even then had they discussed anything very personal.
    Kawashima tried to picture the boys in the Home, to see them with his twenty-nine-year-old eyes. The playroom, its sandbox filled with white sand, all the different dolls and stuffed animals and puppets, the model tanks and cars and toy telephones, the building blocks, the little trampoline, the painting supplies, the children. He managed to envision the entire scene quite vividly: it was as if his adult self were actually standing there, watching the kids. Every imaginable trait that would make an adult despise a child could be found in someone in that room. A hundred out of a hundred grown-ups, being in close quarters with one of these children, would end up with a single thought: What an insufferable little monster!
    These kids wouldn’t say hello or answer when you spoke to them. Call to a boy repeatedly and he’d turn and stare you down, saying something like, ‘Shut up, asshole, I heard you the first time.’ Reprimand another and he’d go feral, throwing things and breaking toys and trying to bite your hand. Many of them ate like animals, even snatching food away from others. There were some who’d curl up in a corner, staring blankly into space only to explode into tears if anyone came near, and others as obsequious as slaves or dogs, anxiously peering up into the attendants’ faces and awaiting orders. There were little girls who would snuggle up to any grown man and try to guide his hand inside their underwear, and there were kids who compulsively bit their own arms. Kids who would suddenly start twitching and banging their heads against a wall, not even stopping when the blood ran down their faces. Kids who waddled around oblivious to the stinking load in their own pants. Watching children like this, it was all too easy to see why their parents beat them. It was only natural to hate such kids, to ignore them and shower only your other children with love. Who wouldn’t?
    But of course that wasn’t the way it really worked. Such behaviours weren’t the reasons parents abused children but the results of abuse. Children are powerless , Kawashima muttered to himself. The tears rolling down his cheeks took him by surprise, and he finished the glass of whisky in one gulp. No matter how viciously they’re beaten, children were powerless to do anything about it. Even if Mother hit them with a shoehorn or the hose of a