Chapter 5

Sakura's disappearance was abrupt and unexplained. She was missing, like a visible hole, from the last-day-of-school party, showed up late to all her exams in a wrinkly uniform and greasy hair, then brushed off Natsumi when she tried to talk to her afterwards. At the post-exam party (Natsumi sometimes felt her life was nothing but a procession of identical parties) Sakura was again missing in action, leaving Natsumi to drift around with Hayato, enduring his awkward flirtation and puppy-dog eyes.

"Hey, do you know what's going on with Sakura?" Natsumi asked one of Sakura's fashionable friends she didn't know too well. The tall beautiful girl just looked at Natsumi strangely and shook her head.

"Still chasing after her, huh?" said Rin, appearing as out of nowhere. Her green hair had turned into streaks of black and orange.

"None of your business." Natsumi took a long gulp of her beer, trying to look disinterested. Rin just looked on with knowing, smug eyes. Natsumi wanted to throttle her, but instead she just returned to Hayato.

He was pushing back against the wall again, as if wanting to merge with the paper. Natsumi tossed him a drink, seeing as how she had finished with her last one. "Your little shoulder devil not here either?"

Hayato shrugged. "Yui? I guess this party is too mainstream for her or something."

"Well, it looks like we're the squares now." Natsumi raised her bottle to clink against Hayato's. "Drink up."

A few hours later things were starting to wind down. There had been a fistfight and the friends of the two combatants had left in seperate sulking camps, leaving only a smattering of people to linger in the ruined atmosphere. Natsumi and Hayato ended up on the couch. He had his arm around her, and she wasn't sure when that had happened. She felt strange, like the air around her was heavy liquid beating down on her, turning everything anyone said into distorted echoes. She was warm. Really warm. She had probably had too much to drink.

Hayato was grabbing the back of her head, turning her towards him, and kissing he on the lips. Time was syrupy and variable, the movement of his head to hers passing in a milisecond and the kiss lasting hours. She felt her hands go up to clasp the back of his head and hold him to her without her command or consent. She felt distantly alarmed that parts of her body were mutinying.

Natsumi supposed she should try kissing back. After all, every other girl liked kissing boys, would be thrilled to be in this position. But it was like kissing a fish. Everything felt wrong – there was just something about the subtle proportions of the face, the rapacious tongue, the stubble that ground against her chin and felt like it would slice it open – all of it felt slightly wrong in a way she couldn't quite define.

Hayato reached out and grabbed her breast. It was then that Natsumi broke away from him. The room was still spinning, but she no longer felt like she was swimming in syrup, and everything was moving in regular time now. He looked shocked. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

Natsumi shook her head. She realized that she had given him a moment of hope there that would torment him for a while. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but I-- I can't. I really can't."

He looked at her with a mixture of confusion and accusation. Natsumi stood up, tugging her purse around her shoulder. "Sorry, I-I have to go." It wasn't the right thing to do. She should have stayed with him and tried to talk him through his inevitable heartbreak, but she just couldn't do it tonight. She couldn't unravel her own hopeless affection, let alone someone else's.

On the way home, the subway car was near-empty and quiet except for a pair of drunken salarymen telling filthy jokes to each other and responding with undue roars of laughter. The darkness of the tunnels, lit only by the occasional industrial orange light that made things even worse, seemed like it wasn't far from smashing the windows and flooding the car and carrying off all of the passengers who might then have the dignity to kick and scream.

As she stepped off the train the chirpy techno-pop ringtone of Natsumi's phone went off, seeming like a noise from so far away. Natsumi wondered if she was just a sad drunk. The ring went off again. Grudgingly she dug the phone out of her pocket. A message from Sakura. Her stupor melted off her.

It was a series of messages from Sakura, actually, a confession poured out over 140-character chunks. She had been with Mr. Bradshaw (or, as she called him, "Ryan"). In his apartment all those days and nights, screwing their souls away. Natsumi felt like she was about to vomit. She had always thought Sakura's crush on the teacher was one of those harmless hopeless things, like Natsumi and Hayato and seemingly everyone she knew harboured within them, letting it grow in spite (perhaps because) of the impossibility of it ever being fulfilled.

Sakura seemed happy, although worried about how she would explain everything to her parents now that she had to finally return to Earth. She gushed about Bradshaw to Natsumi, everything from his taste in music to the length of his cock. Natsumi's first fear was that he was taking advantage of Sakura, and would leave her washed up in a pile of other disposable schoolgirls, popped cherries in a pile like collected box-tops. But then she tried to be generous to Bradshaw, assume that he was genuinely in love with Sakura – and that scared her more. What if they would be like this forever, wrapped up in their own little world while Natsumi helplessly orbited them?

Natsumi mustered up a couple lame replies to Sakura's barrage of texts, congratulating her and adding in a few gossipy demands for more. Right now she knew that she should support her friend no matter what she thought of the relationship. And that meant being the gushing BFF and not the sad lesbian stalker.

Sakura was either oblivious or uncaring to Natsumi's lack of enthusiasm and let her textual desire continue on, showering her friend with the gory details. This was what friends did, right?

The Saturday morning sun strolled into Terry's room like an old friend. He sat there, basking in comfort, arm around the still-sleeping Mika. He gazed in wonder at her perfect face, the kind of perfection he only wished he could draw, her hourglass figure which formed an appreciable bump underneath his blanket ... what in the world had he done to deserve to wake up next to a girl like her?

As if pricked by his gaze, Mika began to stir, her body slowly rumbling and coming to life. She opened up her ocean blue eyes and stared at Terry. "Hi there."

Terry waved jokingly at her. She caught his hand and kissed the knuckle, staring up at him smokily. Mika took one finger between her lips and sucked on it like it was a little cock, swirling her tongue around it and leaving a thin sheen of saliva. Terry slid in closer to her, eager to be lost in the thrill ride that was her body.

Mika suddenly broke off from him. "I uh ... I need to pee." She threw on a T-shirt and panties and sprinted out of his room and to the bathroom. Terry sat up and sighed at the tent in the sheets made by his newly insistent erection.

She returned after what seemed like forever and sat next to him, although without removing her clothes. "Sorry to run out on you like that, but when nature calls..."

"No problem." Terry chuckled in an attempt to put her at ease. "So, uh ... let's talk about fantasies."

Mika wrinkled her brow. "Fantasy? Like, uh, dragons and elves and shit?"

"No, I mean like sexual fantasy. I was reading this thing online and it said that couples should talk about stuff like this."

"Was this one of your porno sites?"

"No! It was an article."

Mika rolled over and gave him a cheesy grin. "One of those magazines you read for the articles, eh?"

"Listen, can you stop making fun of me and tell me a fantasy?"

Mika looked at him for a little bit, face propped up by her hands like a kid. Maybe she was wondering if he was serious. After a little while she relented and spoke while raising a challenging eyebrow. "Well, I've always kind of wanted to be gang-banged."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You know, surrounded by a bunch of guys in a dark alley, used and abused for their physical pleasure, left covered in their dirt and cum but strangely satisfied ... I know it's not the most politically correct thing, but whenever I masturbate the image just pops into my head, and it makes me cum like you wouldn't believe." Her hand wandered down her body and to her panties, encouraging him to imagine it.

Terry gulped, not sure what to make of that. "Uh, wow. That's good, that's good ... it's important to share, you know?"

Mika laughed. "So how about you? What's this fantasy you've been dying to get off your chest."

Terry couldn't even remember what he was going to bring up. "Uh, well, I've always been kind of curious about anal."

Mika stiffened. "Not happening."

"Well you're not making this a very fun couples exercise."

"Sorry, but my butt is exit-only. Go ask some other slut."

Terry wished he was better at reading people – especially when speaking in Japanese, where the nuances of emotion got lost behind the complicated mental apparatus of translation. He wasn't sure whether Mika was genuinely pissed off or just playing around. "Sorry, I won't bring it up again. How about your tits?"

"What about them?"

"Can I fuck them?"

Mika rolled over and gave Terry a long look, as if she was also trying to gauge his seriousness. While doing so she slipped off her shirt to unveil the body parts in question, as if presenting them as court evidence. They were heavy but stood out proudly like two missile tops, shaded tan with mocha kisses for nipples. She turned onto her back with a roll of her eyes. "Do you know how many guys I've been with that have asked to do that?"

"Um..."

"All of them." Mika cupped her breasts together, tightening up the exquisite valley between them that Terry was suddenly beginning to think of as the promised land. "What is it about these big ol' things that men just can't get enough of? I have two other perfectly good, warm, wet holes ready for their cock, but all they can think about is giving me a titfuck like they see in the porno movies." She turned to Terry, looking coy. "Can you explain it to me?"

At the mention of her warm wet holes in a sultry tone of voice Terry's already stiff dick had pulsed with almost painful need. He tried to form syllables with his mouth, but it felt like the language department of his brain was turning out the lights and going home to party. "Um ... uh ... well ... I guess that's just the way men are."

Mika pulled the American onto her. Her panties had vanished sometime during the conversation. "Why don't you show me some more of what men are like? What they feel like ... what they taste like ... teach me, oh wise master."

Terry slipped into Mika's pussy before he even knew he was aiming for it. It was every bit as wet and hot and willing as she had promised. Beneath him her body was red hot, pumping back against him and writhing, raking her hard nipples against his chest. Mika grabbed him by the hair and pressed her lips to him, spearing her tongue into his mouth.

There was a special quality to morning sex, coming so soon after waking up and before their bodies had a chance to get jaded by the daily procession of mundanity. Every inch of Terry's skin was like a live wire, sending him acutely observed sensations and feelings. Quite aside from the slick inferno that was her cunt, he felt like he could get off just on the sensation of skin rubbing against skin. He thrust into Mika slowly in a long movement while pressing tightly against her, trying to fuck her entire body.

If he was trying to slow down and take in every ounce of experience, she was going crazy, thrusting her hips up like a piston and demanding that he match her. Mika began making raw animal noises under him, speaking a private language.

"Do it!" she gasped.

Terry just let out an incoherent groan, not sure what she was talking about it.

"Fuck my tits!" Mika yelled. "If you want to so bad, fuck my goddamn tits!"

In a daze, Terry pulled out from her cunt, which was still clinging to him for dear life, and slid up her body. Mounting her chest, his hungry red cock poked straight down that heavenly valley. Mika grabbed her heaving breasts and held them togeter, forming a tight tunnel around his cock. His cock slicked with her juices, Terry begin to thrust up and down into her cleavage, enjoying the feel of the voluminous mounds but mostly the sight of his hard member disappearing between those breasts, those magnificent breasts. Beneath him Mika was furiously finger-fucking herself, spasming and moaning.

It was big sex, so decadent and over-indulgent that it was hard to believe he was even here, doing this, and when the realization came that this was actually his life and not a porno Terry came suddenly, throwing his head back as he was taken by his own set of shudders.

He still saw, out of the corner of his eye, the first jet of his cum land between Mika's eyes, defiling her beautiful face. Terry leaned back, more out of losing control of his body than intention, and the next few lesser spurts showered over her tits, which were soon gleaming with his pearly seed. He looked at Mika, covered with his essence, and thought it might be the sexiest thing he'dd ever seen in his life.

"Happy now?" she said, smirking and licking her lips. He nodded dumbly.

Terry rolled off her, still trying to form a coherent thought. Mika sat up, cum running down her nose and off her breasts and dripping onto the sheets. "I think I need a towel."

In the distance Terry could hear Naomichi banging around. He blushed, wondering if his roommate had heard Mika screaming about fucking her tits. Well, she certainly couldn't go out as she was. Terry put on his boxers and darted across to the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and dashed back all in front of an eyebrow-raising Naomichi.

He offered her the towel and she wiped his cum off her. "I really have to get going," Mika said. She began pacing the room, trying to recover all the pieces of the outfit that had been scattered haphazardly

"Come on, you can stay a while," Terry said, trying not to sound like he was pleading.

"No, really, I have a shoot today, and I have to go home and get ready." Mika checked her reflection in Terry's computer monitor and wiped a spray bit of cum off her forehead. "Thanks for the good time though."

"Let's do this again," Terry said. "How about Friday?"

Mika looked at him in a way Terry couldn't decipher. "Sure. But next time bring some friends, because we're totally doing the gang-bang thing."

She left the apartment with her purse swining like a metronome timing her steps. On the outside she was all smiles and cheer, but Terry couldn't help but feel that inside there was something dark that he just couldn't get at. Mika was easily the most beautiful girl he'd ever known, let alone slept with, but he could never imagine what she was thinking. Unlike his previous girlfriends, for the most part nerdy white chicks, he just couldn't figure out her mental interiority. It was frustrating. He still had no idea how she felt about that morning's events.

Naomichi offered Terry a cup of coffee. "She's one hell of a girl, man."

"She certainly is."

Yui had decided to stay home tonight. There was another drunken gathering at another semi-friend's house, but she honestly didn't feel up to it. Besides which, her hair was beginning to grow out, the dull black roots clawing up out of her scalp and putting the obvious lie to the painted colours of the rest of it. She had bought some more dye, but somehow she couldn't even work up the effort to spend a couple minutes bowed in front of a tub rubbing strange liquid into her hair. In her lethargic summer state anything momentarily unpleasant was a no-go, no matter what the long-term (or even medium-term) benefits would be.

So Yui was spending the night in her room, lying on her bed with the stereo going full blast and staring at a Banana Yoshimoto novel that deflected all her attempts to read it. It wasn't heaven, but it was comfortable.

The music died down and, in the momentary pause between sounds Yui could hear pounding at her door, that sounded a bit like a jackhammer. She dragged herself off the beg and opened the door a crack.

It was her mother, nose scrunched up as usual at the wall of noise. "Yui, dear, I've been knocking for over a minute--

"Yeah, yeah, I didn't hear you," said Yui. "What is it?"

"There's a friend here to see you," said her mother. Yui opened the door a bit wider and could now see Hayato standing in the apartment hallway, leaning against the wall. Her mother looked as skeptical as any mother would when their daughter gets a clearly drunk male visitor around midnight.

"Oh hi Hayato," said Yui, trying to act scandalously casual. "Come on in."

Yui's mother walked away as Hayato walked to her room, his slow and careful steps telling sagas. He got to the room and shut the door behind him. "Man, Yui, I don't know why you listen to this crap. It's just some losers with second-hand instruments making as much noise as possible. That's not even music."

"Well, I'm sorry that it offends you," she said, switching the stereo off. By the time she had turned around Hayato had draped his coat over her desk chair and sat down on the edge of her bed.

"So yeah, I guess I just came to say you were right. I'm never gonna be with Natsumi. She's a fucking dyke, just like you always said, and the only person in the world she cares about is that bitch Sakura."

"She's not that bad," Yui said. "You can't really blame a person for not liking you."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

Yui held up her hands defensively. "Just that people are gonna be attracted to who they're attracted to, and there's not much you can do about it. You in the general, not you in the specific. Not an insult."

"Thanks," Hayato said bitterly. He stood up off the bed and stepped closer to Yui. Another step closer, and now he was almost touching her. "You know, I've been a dumbass. Chasing after some dyke all this time when there's a perfectly good girl right in front of me. You know what I mean?"

"I ... I..."

Hayato pressed his lips to Yui's. The kiss was forceful and tasted of booze and someone else's lipstick. It was what Yui had wanted for a long time, but now it just felt wrong, vulgar and sloppy. It took her a moment to work up the will, but when she did she reached up to push Hayato away. He stumbled on a stray piece of dirty laundry and wound up sprawled on his ass, looking up at Yui in confusion.

"Geez, I guess I was pretty dumb to think at least one girl liked me."

"No, no..." Yui muttered. She reached down to offer him a hand up. "It's just ... I don't want to be your consolation prize. When you come to me ... if you come to me ... I want it to be because of me, not because Natsumi rejected you and you're drunk and want to piss her off or want to get laid or something like that."

Hayato got to his shaky feet. He looked like he didn't understand.

"Look," said Yui. "Call me tomorrow, once you've sobered up. If you're still interested, we'll grab drinks. Capiche?"

Hayato nodded slowly. Geez, he really was drunk. Yui opened her bedroom door and led him outside. "Are you okay getting home?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Hayato in a barely comprehensible slur. "Look, I'm sorry about everything."

After he left, Yui's mother turned to her with a raised eyebrow. "And what was that all about?"

"Just another heart I had to break." Yui ruffled her hair mockingly. "It's not easy being me."

Terry looked over at the page he had just finished. It was going well – the drawings were getting to be a matter of instinct, and the story, which had started out as some vague misty lump in his mind, was starting to turn into something that might have an end. He thought he could wrap it up in the next issue, draw all his plot threads together and turn this from a series of wandering pornographic vignettes into a true novel.