Piercing by Ryu Murakami Read Free Book Online Page B

movement; the pathos of pubic hair; the cracked, yellowed nail of a big toe. He’d once been so accustomed to this sort of body that when he first slept with Yoko the firmness of her flesh actually felt strange to him. Yoko was now twenty-nine and had given birth to a child, but when you touched her neck or arm or ass, the flesh still pressed back. Looking at the supposedly thirty-eight-year-old ass flattened against the bedspread, Kawashima thought: There’s something non-threatening about skin like this. Soft as a spongecake left over from Christmas; skin that yielded to your touch rather than resisting defiantly. It was as if the very cells were conscious of their age and had ceased to assert themselves.
    He was drinking this body in with his eyes when he came. The woman wiped him off with a hot, wet towel.
    After handing her over 30,000 yen and sending her on her way, he lay back on the bedspread, still naked. He was enveloped in a sort of weightless tranquillity that was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Far from any danger of his nervous system going haywire. Kawashima had never understood the how or why of those episodes of his - the explosions of shock and terror and rage, the total loss of control - but they always left him feeling miserable afterwards. He’d often wondered if one couldn’t train oneself to develop nerves that wouldn’t crack like that. But the reality, he thought, staring up at the ceiling, is that I’ll probably have to go through this sort of thing forever. He’d just spurted a large volume of semen, and though it had occasioned him no more excitement than a good sneeze, he was enjoying the after-effects. It felt good just lying there gazing at the ceiling. He was aware that the good feeling existed side by side with a chilling sort of loneliness, but even that wasn’t all bad. He was picturing the masseuse’s bulky thighs when something important occurred to him, and he sat up in bed and reached for his briefcase. He opened it, took out the notes, and added a couple of lines:
    The woman must be not only young but petite. A large woman would be more difficult to control in the event of any unforeseen glitches .

7
    SANADA CHIAKI WAS AWAKE but needed to lie in bed a while longer. The dial on her electric blanket was turned to high, but because of the Halcion she felt heavy and frozen stiff, from hair to toenails. The phone stopped ringing, and after the high-pitched mechanical whine of her answering machine a subdued male voice eased out of the little speaker.
    ‘Aya-san, are you going to make it to the office today? Either way, give us a call, will you? If you’re not feeling well, you can have the night off, of course, but we need you to call in. We’ve got you down for an appointment this evening, six o’clock at the Keio Plaza, room 2902, a Mr Yokoyama. He’s a new client, but he sounds young, and he sounds like a gentleman. You’ll probably have to go straight there, considering the time, but drop by the office when you finish, no matter how late it is, all right? And please don’t turn off your—’
    A beep signalled an end to the allotted message time. A few moments later the phone rang again.
    ‘I got cut off. As I was saying, we need you to leave your pager on. If you pick up this message from outside and don’t have your toys with you, you’ll have to stop by the office or your apartment first. Whatever you do, don’t show up at the appointment without equipment, all right? Anyway, we’re waiting to hear from you. If you’re running short on time, you can call after you’ve arrived at the Keio Plaza. Your period hasn’t started yet, has it? If it—’
    The machine cut him off again, and this time he didn’t call back. Chiaki decided she’d better get up and eat something. She looked at the clock and saw that it was already three in the afternoon. The Keio Plaza was only twelve or thirteen minutes away by taxi, but after a three-Halcion sleep she’d