Lust
Part Three
Part 3
I had started to follow him. Maybe the day after I saw him laughing, maybe the day after that. I can’t remember. I have Polaroid photos stuck to my walls, no one comes in here, I can have all the shrine I want in the apartment I rented across from his dojo. I have accepted the word shrine. It took a while. I asked Nagi what you call those fan sites on the Internet. He said they were shrines.
Some in-depth bribing and threatening within Kritiker turned up some old photos of Aya with a burly blonde man where is wearing a long black coat covered in buckles and a white scarf around his thigh. His hair was long. I came very close to having them framed. He looked younger in them, slightly harder edged as well. The friend he goes out with is called Honjyou, I knew that anyway, now I know where from. They were together in one of Kritiker’s non lethal, less annoying groups before he joined Weiss.
I had known that, but never looked into it, the photos however interested me greatly. He had become softer in his time in Weiss, it had been nearly five years now all in all. Even Bombay was starting to look grown up. He was just a teenager in these photos, young and naïve. I really had to get myself another hobby.
Anything.
I hear macramé is relaxing. I had a vision of myself knitting and surrounded by cats. What was this sudden problem with cats in my visions, hundreds and hundreds of common or garden variety cats, seething upon each other. I don’t even like cats. So why did I keep seeing myself content buried up to the eyebrows in cats, and knitting.
I looked around the apartment, at the shelves of disks of footage. This really wasn’t healthy. I could give up at any time, really I can, honest. I keep telling myself that.
The boy, I stop myself he’s not a boy anymore, no more than I am, the man intoxicates me. I can tell you anything about him, his favourite flavour of ice cream is pistachio, but failing that he prefers vanilla over one of the sweeter flavours. He likes sugared cones. He buys crepes with strawberry syrup. His favourite dish is natto, and his favourite sweater is that vile orange polo neck. He likes imported beers, preferably European, and likes his Sake warm. He drinks jack on the rocks with diet Pepsi, he’s particular about that, no Pepsi and he’ll drink it as straight as it comes. Vodka he has with cranberry and grapefruit in a cocktail called a seabreeze. Gin he has with lemon and tonic, he likes that in the summer in the afternoon. He writes bad poetry and short stories that he publishes under a pseudonym, they are very well received and actually very good. He likes books with unhappy endings and his favourite book is "The Good Soldier " by Ford Madox Ford. I haven’t read it yet.
His favourite movie is "The Princess Bride" which surprised me, he doesn’t read manga often, but when he does they tend to come highly recommended. If he watches a film it’s usually subtitled, he goes to the expensive theatre across town that shows arthouse flicks. His favourite live house though he doesn’t go there much anymore is Zepp Tokyo . He wears Obsession for men aftershave at night, but smells of flowers during the day. I could rival any of his fan girls for information. More than once when one of them has clung to his arm in the shop I have to seriously stop myself from putting a magnum round in her head. I am jealous.
He wears size twenty six jeans, which is girlishly tiny, and buys his socks from a very expensive department store. He has his trench coat privately dry cleaned, which is expensive, and more than once I have nearly broken in and stolen it. He doesn’t dance often, but when he does he is a god. He knows the Victorian language of flowers, a piece of information that surprised me before I realised it was perfectly in his nature to know that, and he sends money to his sister in France once a month. He has a very hefty savings account in his name and one in hers, in case of emergencies. He sells short stories under a pseudonym to a popular woman’s magazine.
I feel like a stalker.
I suppose I am.
This is getting out of hand.
A hobby, I really need a hobby, painting maybe.
Or collecting cats, I think dryly remembering my vision, or knitting. Or collecting cats and knitting.
I am yet to find out the name of the poem, Nagi had little more luck than I did, we weren’t even sure it was in English, and the album he had sung along to I had no idea of. Even with much improved cinema when I scanned his CDs I couldn’t tell which one it was. Although I was able to guess which ones it wasn’t. I had it narrowed down to a list of twenty or more.
He has a mission tonight. An easy one, a Yakuza who calls himself the White Snake has risen up outside of our control and has put four boys under ten in the hospital by testing street drugs on them. I’d deal with it myself but we do leave some for Kritiker, just in case we need them later. He’s going to put his coat on! I can’t hide my excitement. I nearly stole that coat just so he would put the far more interesting Crashers one on instead. Hmmmm.
I got up off the floor again. Maybe I needed counselling, that was why I kept lying back on the floor and sighing.
I watched his film, well more specifically, I watched him watching his favourite film and the camera was angled so I could see the screen. He doesn’t have a TV in his room, he watched it in the communal area, there was a line in it that intrigued me, "life is pain, princess, anyone who tells you any different is trying to sell you something." I could see why he liked the film, I couldn’t figure out why he loved it, but I could see why he liked it. He read the script alongside it, driving everyone else out of the room. He laughed at it, even as he said the jokes in time. I wonder if he sees himself as the man in black with his sword. Whether he has ever fenced in front of his mirror with a bandanna and mask and his katana. I like that idea as well.
I think I really need counselling.
He still performs for the camera.
I have accepted him as my fantasy figure. I still don’t remember my dreams of him, but I have a pretty good idea they’re similar if not the same as my day dreams. In my daydreams his mouth is pepper mint fresh and hot against mine and his skin chill. I imagine myself kissing him senseless. I started watching him to work out the best way to kill him, and now, I know exactly the best way to kill him, I have every intention of fucking him till his heart explodes.
Maybe Berserker’s doctors…
This is out of hand. I know the only way to control myself now is to control him.
I have developed a twitch. My eye has a tendency to try to wink at people without my consent. I have assigned it to stress and the other members of Schwartz have accepted it as that, it doesn’t stop Mastermind winking back. The Yakuza is an annoyance at best, he works out of a small bar not far from the sunshine sixty building. I have it wired. Schwartz has no interest in this man, other than our usual professional courtesy such as it is. Nevertheless I walked straight through the front door, they knew who I was and left me be, to await the show.
Weiss are so theatrical. It’s so kawaii.
The lights went out and then a spotlight found our poor erstwhile Yakuza, then four tiny little darts appeared just above his head and as he stumbled to his feet a second spotlight found Aya, haloing him. I very nearly groaned, it made him even paler and his hair shine. "We are Weiss," he said, "shi-ne!", I nearly swooned and then he cut his head off, quick as you like and then spotted me.
I had made no attempt to hide.
He looked me clear in the eye and I spread my hands as if to tell him I had nothing to do with this, and no interest in what happened here. I even lifted my drink, which was nothing but tonic water and waved them away. I really had no interest in this self proclaimed White Snake. I had come to watch Aya. He looked puzzled and I sighed and tapped the side of my head, suggesting I had a vision, I hadn’t, my surveillance is exquisite, I didn’t need to. "I don’t understand you, Schwartz." He said, his voice deep, and he was addressing me, nor had he put his katana away I hasten to point out.
"If you hadn’t dealt with him, I would have." I replied tersely. "No harm no foul. Away you go. I have no interest in you in this matter." The lie felt thick in my throat. My sole interest in this was him. I shooed him away with my hand, but he looked puzzled. "We’re even on the same side in this one." I told him as the spotlight found what puzzled their leader. "I’m going to finish my drink and leave, you’re welcome to join me." I said.
"You are Schwartz." He said in a way that translated as you are my enemy, you will always be my enemy.
"You have blood on your face." I replied handing him a napkin from the table. He wiped it away angrily. He even muttered a thank you. "I told you, our missions coincide at this point, nothing more." I slid my glasses down my nose in my most seductive stare. "You could even say we were allies at this point."
"Don’t push it, Oracle." He said, sheathing his katana in its saya.
"If I wanted you dead you and your friends would be dead." I reassured him, I took another drink of my tonic water. "Are you sure you won’t join me?"
"Clean up will be here within the hour." He said. "I would suggest leaving before then." And then he turned on his heel and left in a swirl of his black coat. I was instantly reminded, of all people, of Darth Vader in Star Wars. I didn’t like the film, it was too cut and dried, but a female friend admitted once that everything was about Han Solo until she started to really pay attention to Darth Vader’s cape . She was very drunk when she admitted it and denied it the next morning, but hell that cape is sexy, I’m sure that’s why Dracula gets so many girls, and Batman. That coat is really just a cape.
I left about five minutes after he did to give the impression I wasn’t following him, well it felt like five minutes, it might have been as little as thirty seconds. I didn’t bother to check my watch. Then I stopped into another bar across the road and drank myself senseless.
He is so hot. How did I miss that for four years?
Even with the death glare he is really sexy. Hell, the death glare makes him sexy. The death glare, the katana and the coat would probably make anyone sexy, but his shoulders are broad, and his waist and hips are so small I could probably wrap one hand around them. I could eat him up with a spoon and strawberry syrup the colour of his hair.
The surveillance has gone on for nine months now.
Nagi has started to worry for me. That is never good. I remembered his birthday, well the anniversary of him joining Schwartz and got him a gift, a game he said he wanted and hadn’t bought yet. We have decided that he is nineteen now. Mastermind suspects he has a girlfriend, I don’t press him, he doesn’t press me, that suits us well enough for now. He appears to be a little taller, Mastermind measured him against the mark on the safe house frame from when we came to Tokyo, there is at least an inch difference. He will always be small, but he may still have a growth spurt and end as tall as me or Mastermind. If I am father then Mastermind is mother.
I took Nagi out to an ochaya and got him very drunk and arranged for a very exclusive prostitute for him. I was glad to do it. I stayed over, one of the advantages of owning most of the underworld, and thought about the mission the night before, at how he had sheathed the katana. Now if there is a symbol replete with Freudian double meaning that would be it. He couldn’t have known I was watching him, could he?
I kept imagining him laying over the back of the couch where he had been reading, asleep, the top button on his jeans undone and one hand flung over his eyes and the other on his chest, on the book of poetry he was reading. The strange American CD was playing in the back. His hair was flung across his cheek, his face turned to the side, and slightly flushed, and his mouth open so that I could see the tip of his pink tongue. He never sleeps in the communal area so it really is just wishful thinking on my part. Part of me wants him to bring someone home so I can observe that, then the other half of me wants to cut out the part that thought up that particular perversion. He is mine. I need to make him mine. If I make him mine then I will regain control.
I have watched the mission tape over and over again. I must admit it made me hot when he came at me with that sword knowing that he wouldn’t bring it against me. Part of me wants to fuck him when he holds the sword, the other part of me knows perfectly well what he’d do with it. When he goes out he has a knife in his boot and another at the small of his back. I am no different, but I wear a magnum as well. We are assassins, its expected.
It has been too long.
I try to remember with my usual fastidiousness how long it has been since I took a lover, and excluding the one in my dreams it has been nearly three years. Definitely too long. Except he has spoiled me for any one else. If I take a lover I will imagine him, I would make him dye his hair, avoid the sun till he was as pale, read me English poetry by poets I’d never heard of in that same sexy voice, but it wouldn’t be the same, would never be the same, that would rid me of control. If I did that then he would have won. I try to remember when this became a game. When did my little mouse start to play with the cat.
I am going to have to do something about this, soon.
He is meeting his friend tonight, the blonde bear, Honjyou. Again I am struck by useless jealousy, so outside my normal frame of reference I can’t think of something to compare it to. I imagine it is like a child who wants something only to see someone else have it and not use it to the best of its potential, of course if Honjyou even tried that I would kill him, resurrect him, and kill him again.
I have a terrible thought that maybe Aya might take a lover. He might have had other lovers before we met, he might not be totally mine. I will have to increase my information, and destroy anyone who might possibly think of taking him from me. who might have took him from me. He is mine, he just doesn’t know it yet. I dress myself in black knowing how it makes me look, Mastermind looks up when I leave my room, "the black Karan," he muses, "hot date?"
"Important meeting." I reply tersely.
"Anyone I’d know?" He asks, his hair is blue this week, it doesn’t suit him.
"I hope not." I answer checking my appearance in the mirror by the door. I have decided to eschew glasses in favour of contact lenses, it would mean I was less easy to recognise, I may not be ready to pounce just yet, but I didn’t want him to pounce either.
"You smell nice." Nagi says from the kitchen, "hot date?"
"Important meeting." I reply telling him the same lie I told Mastermind.
"Don’t do anything he wouldn’t do." Nagi says flicking a thumb at Mastermind who acts mortally offended. "I’ll leave the door on the latch." He assures me, he will be the last one to bed, he always is. I have a half formed thought of foregoing chasing Aya and just bedding Nagi, he’s convenient, it wouldn’t mean anything and it might regain me a measure of control. No, I tell myself, a measure’s not enough. You’re not going to be happy, I tell myself, until you nail that man into the floor. "And you look nice. Its strange to see you with contacts."
"It’s strange to wear them, Nagi," I tell him. "I shouldn’t be out too late, make sure Farfarello takes his medication."
He nods. "Hai, Tousan," he says with a wink and I’m left to wondering when he started to call me that.
I might just have to kill Honjyou. I am considering it, something that doesn’t make me look guilty, hell I could gun him down on the street in front of a hundred witnesses and get away with it, but that’s not my intention at this juncture. They were sitting in a booth in the bar, he wore a black angora roll neck with no sleeves, probably the one he had been wearing that day when he was reading and a pair of very fine leather gloves to match his leather pants. He looked hotter like that than he had in the traditional robes.
The combination of the scratchy black wool and the leather just about made me turn around and walk back out, though I was in before he was. I arranged myself in the booth behind theirs and listened in on their conversation, recording it for posterity and later analysis.
They had started the evening with a comfortable hug, the blonde was wearing an open necked blue shirt with a white vine detail along one side and a pair of moleskin pants. "It’s always so good to see you, Yuuyuu." Aya said.
"I know, this comes far too infrequently, Ranran." He had a private nickname for him. They ordered three drinks making me wonder if I had somehow made a mistake, the three drinks were the same. The waitress queried it, just as I did. "The third glass is for the devil," Honjyou told her, "when you drink to the past you always lay a third glass for the devil." That nearly floored me, I wondered how they’d react if I took it. They were drinking cocktails called black velvets and I didn’t want to know what made them as it looked very noxious. I ordered vodka and cranberry with shaved ice and listened to them reminisce. That was all they did all night and it became apparent very quickly that the former team mates had been lovers who parted amicably when they just out grew the other. I couldn’t imagine out growing him but it had seemed very early that they really had just been fuck buddies more interested in the laughter they shared than the sex. That concept I could vaguely understand, the idea that the shared camaraderie was what had carried over almost made perfect sense, then why did they put out a glass for the devil.
They stayed for a few hours, laughing and joking about mutual friends and their month, they really did tell each other everything, and then Honjyou left him with a kiss on his forehead to go and see his lover, someone called Nao though whether Naoki or Naoko I didn’t know. That I couldn’t understand. He downed his drink and left. Aya lingered over his for a few minutes, then tilted the glass on the table muttered something I couldn’t hear, and then emptied the third drink in a single draught, no mean feat for a pint glass, and left. I knew from past experience, he didn’t linger on the way he just went home and slept off the drink.
I followed him by about ten minutes and copied his example I went straight home, but I went straight into the space room and booted up the big computer that was normally Nagi’s domain. The ritual was strange enough that it had to have a precedent. Why set out a glass for the devil? Although I knew that Aya was educated I wasn’t really prepared for the answer, the ancient assassins, the Hashashin started the practice over a thousand years ago, although they were fanatically devout and believed that they would go to heaven, if they lived long enough to remember the past, they laid a glass out for the devil who obviously kept them from harm. The devil protected those not devout enough to die for god, so he was welcomed at the table.
There it was, a piece of poetry, singing along to music I had never heard and then the piece d’resistance a gesture of repentance that I understood completely, even if Honjyou was non lethal. I could consider drinking with the devil, hell in most people’s eyes I was the devil.
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