The End of the Moment We Had

But I was also completely wasted, so I probably didn’t manage to say any of that in a logical and intelligible way—even when I’m sober I’m not the best at communicating stuff like that—so the best I could do was to try over and over again, tracing the same line of conversation, and even then I doubt I managed to get it quite right. She was skinny, and her fingers and the palm of her hand didn’t have much meat on them. The feel of her fingers laced between mine actually hurt a little, the bony sharpness of them, it was like they existed to give that pain, and that pain felt kind of good. I wiggled my fingers between hers like to appreciate it. We pretended the driver couldn’t see us. He probably knew what was going on, but he was an older guy who was good at acting like nothing was happening in his taxi, and if he did suspect something, he knew better than to make too big of a show ignoring it, since that would just tip us off to the fact that he knew, but anyway even if he did know I really didn’t care. He must have seen us making out in the rear-view mirror. My other hand was up her skirt, not quite in her panties but rubbing the top of her thighs through her stockings as voices kept going back and forth on the taxi radio. And still I couldn’t get away from thinking how at SuperDeluxe, when the audience members went up to the mic, they were speaking in Japanese, but it almost sounded like English, and why did it sound that way? I went back and forth over these thoughts, running my hands over her stockings, imagining the feel of the bare skin underneath. Although, I mean, I couldn’t be too obvious about rubbing her thighs, so a lot of the time I just had my hand on her thigh, resting. Now I wonder what she was thinking after hearing me say what I said about the performance, or if she even heard it at all. When I said what I said, how come she didn’t answer? Did she try to say something, or try to get me to say more, and horniness got in the way? I’ll never be able to ask her now—I doubt I’ll ever see her again. Maybe if the performers were Japanese, even if they said all the exact same things, the whole thing would have felt different. There was a particular atmosphere there, an informal conversation about the war that was about to begin, a conversation that could never have happened in a room full of only Japanese people. I can’t even imagine it. If a group of Japanese people tried to create the same scene, it would feel wrong, like a fake plastered-on smile, and I wouldn’t go anywhere near it.

The guy and me got out of the taxi and went into a convenience store for water and beer. Then we picked a hotel at random, because one was just as good as another, and got a room. It had a little fridge. That was all we needed. We were both drunk to the point of exhaustion, pretty much numb. I couldn’t say for sure exactly where we got out of the taxi. I remember that the big intersection, the one in front of Shibuya Station that’s always swarming with people, was as busy as usual even that late at night, so we must have gotten out around there. It would have been a little embarrassing to ask the driver to let us off by Love Hotel Hill, so we probably said that the big intersection was fine. But the driver was just a regular old guy, and we were so messed up, we probably didn’t feel like walking and didn’t care if he knew what we were doing, and maybe we had him drop us off by the Bunkamura. There was a Sunkus convenience store across from the 109 building, so we went there first. He wanted another beer. I didn’t need any more alcohol. He bought a 500ml can. I got a litre of Evian. And also some chocolate. Whenever I get drunk and pass out, I wake up with my mouth feeling all dry and gross, like I’m about to come down with a cold. Even when I’m not that drunk, the air conditioning in love hotels is always pretty harsh, it dries you out more than anything else, which makes me feel sick, so if I don’t remember to bring water I always regret it, which has happened a bunch of times, so to make sure it never happens again I think about how bad it was and always make sure to buy myself some water, no matter how drunk I am. At this point it’s basically a physical reflex. The chocolate I got just because I love chocolate and thought I might want some later. I thought I would eat it when we got to the room, but that didn’t happen. We had only just met, so as soon as we got to the room we undressed and had sex. I didn’t get so entirely carried away that I forgot about the chocolate, but I never got around to eating it the whole time we were there, and when we finally left the hotel I took the chocolate home with me. I ended up eating it at my place, while watching the news about the war.

After sex the first time we had sex again without stopping to rest, but he seemed fine, so I figured we might as well keep going, and then I was like this pace is kind of intense, but we kept at it, full speed. Eventually he slowed down, and then he passed out. I figured I’d get some sleep too—though it wasn’t like I was feeling sad to be left awake alone or