fact, he started to replace her bra.
At the touch of his hands on her chest, Mai's eyes popped open. She stared in disbelief as he covered up her breasts. And not only her breasts. He put all her clothes back on her, retracing his earlier steps in reverse. He closed her away, just as innocent as she had been before, with not so much as a drop of his saliva upon her.
She looked the question into his eyes.
...Why ?
Sugiyama leaned close and whispered into Mai's ear,
"I guess we'd better not."
The blunt inadequacy of the words belied his usual eloquence. Sugiyama should have been able to come up with some pretty-sounding explanation for why he'd stopped in the middle. But he hadn't even tried. He had simply said "let's not."
Mai's mind went blank with confusion. She felt humiliated, robbed of her dignity as a person, reduced to the status of a dress-up doll.
They'd agreed to have sex. Why did he feel it necessary to do a u-turn like that? Was her body so unattractive? His refusal to explain allowed all sorts of doubts to bloom in her mind. She couldn't understand what had killed his desire. She could only despair.
Is it because my breasts are so small? she asked herself. But he hadn't needed to undress her to find that out.
It was obvious, to a degree, even when she was clothed.
Hurt, and without finding out why, she left Sugiyama's apartment and went home.
Their relationship ended there.
She'd had boyfriends since, and they'd tried, but she'd never crossed the line. Those dozen or so seconds of blankness always came back to haunt her. She felt like he'd evaluated her nakedness; she didn't like it. She'd rather stay a virgin for the rest of her life than go through that again.
There could be no mistake, no gap in her memory, about it. There was no point to any further scrutinizing the fact that she'd never had sex. That was a sure premise.
So then why am I pregnant?
Cause and effect. When something happened, there was a reason for it. The only immediate cause she could think of—yes, having watched that tape.
Then, she remembered something else, too.
I was ovulating the day I watched it.
She knew it, based on her cycle and on the ther-mometer. Her ovulation, that tape. The two had somehow come together to produce the change in her body.
The line between shadow and light was climbing the wall now. The sun was sinking, and the rectangular space was coming under the inexorable rule of darkness again.
Mai felt an appraising gaze on her body, like Sugiyama's. But there was nobody at the lip of the fissure peering in. The gaze emanated from within her own womb. The eyes she carried within were watching her.
As if to prove it, her belly undulated again with small but sharp movements.
5
In the end, she never was able to locate the missing pages among Ryuji's household effects. She'd promised the editor she'd have the manuscript to him by the next day. She had until the next afternoon to provide a clean copy of the final installment of the series.
It was late in the evening. Mai had locked herself in her studio apartment. She had spread the manuscript out before her on the table, and now sat there groaning, her head in her hands. It was a small room—five mats or so in size. She sat on the floor with a backrest propping her up at a low table that she used as a desk. This was how she always studied. From where she was sitting, her bookcase was close enough that she could reach out and touch it. The bookcase housed a fourteen-inch TV with a built-in VCR.
She didn't know what to do about the manuscript.
Over and over she'd look up and heave a sigh. How was she going to make up for the missing section?
Mai had been concentrating on filling in the gap with her own words. There was a clear leap in logic from the previous installment to this final one. She'd been trying to supplement the argument; that was what had her stalled and groaning, her head aching.
Suddenly it occurred to her. Instead of trying to add,
At the touch of his hands on her chest, Mai's eyes popped open. She stared in disbelief as he covered up her breasts. And not only her breasts. He put all her clothes back on her, retracing his earlier steps in reverse. He closed her away, just as innocent as she had been before, with not so much as a drop of his saliva upon her.
She looked the question into his eyes.
...Why ?
Sugiyama leaned close and whispered into Mai's ear,
"I guess we'd better not."
The blunt inadequacy of the words belied his usual eloquence. Sugiyama should have been able to come up with some pretty-sounding explanation for why he'd stopped in the middle. But he hadn't even tried. He had simply said "let's not."
Mai's mind went blank with confusion. She felt humiliated, robbed of her dignity as a person, reduced to the status of a dress-up doll.
They'd agreed to have sex. Why did he feel it necessary to do a u-turn like that? Was her body so unattractive? His refusal to explain allowed all sorts of doubts to bloom in her mind. She couldn't understand what had killed his desire. She could only despair.
Is it because my breasts are so small? she asked herself. But he hadn't needed to undress her to find that out.
It was obvious, to a degree, even when she was clothed.
Hurt, and without finding out why, she left Sugiyama's apartment and went home.
Their relationship ended there.
She'd had boyfriends since, and they'd tried, but she'd never crossed the line. Those dozen or so seconds of blankness always came back to haunt her. She felt like he'd evaluated her nakedness; she didn't like it. She'd rather stay a virgin for the rest of her life than go through that again.
There could be no mistake, no gap in her memory, about it. There was no point to any further scrutinizing the fact that she'd never had sex. That was a sure premise.
So then why am I pregnant?
Cause and effect. When something happened, there was a reason for it. The only immediate cause she could think of—yes, having watched that tape.
Then, she remembered something else, too.
I was ovulating the day I watched it.
She knew it, based on her cycle and on the ther-mometer. Her ovulation, that tape. The two had somehow come together to produce the change in her body.
The line between shadow and light was climbing the wall now. The sun was sinking, and the rectangular space was coming under the inexorable rule of darkness again.
Mai felt an appraising gaze on her body, like Sugiyama's. But there was nobody at the lip of the fissure peering in. The gaze emanated from within her own womb. The eyes she carried within were watching her.
As if to prove it, her belly undulated again with small but sharp movements.
5
In the end, she never was able to locate the missing pages among Ryuji's household effects. She'd promised the editor she'd have the manuscript to him by the next day. She had until the next afternoon to provide a clean copy of the final installment of the series.
It was late in the evening. Mai had locked herself in her studio apartment. She had spread the manuscript out before her on the table, and now sat there groaning, her head in her hands. It was a small room—five mats or so in size. She sat on the floor with a backrest propping her up at a low table that she used as a desk. This was how she always studied. From where she was sitting, her bookcase was close enough that she could reach out and touch it. The bookcase housed a fourteen-inch TV with a built-in VCR.
She didn't know what to do about the manuscript.
Over and over she'd look up and heave a sigh. How was she going to make up for the missing section?
Mai had been concentrating on filling in the gap with her own words. There was a clear leap in logic from the previous installment to this final one. She'd been trying to supplement the argument; that was what had her stalled and groaning, her head aching.
Suddenly it occurred to her. Instead of trying to add,
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