LITMIR.BIZ

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room completely naked. Eiko, who was sitting on the floor leaning back on one hand, looked up at him. There was a slight smile on her lips and her eyes shone brightly. Her glance questioned and challenged his boldness.

      Tatsuya was surprised by her look of excitement, but at the same time he found her eyes fascinatingly beautiful. He stepped forward.

      "Show how you can punch the bag?" she said. "Hit it hard."

      Without hesitating, he punched it as hard as he could. One, two, one, two. It seemed to crumple up under his blows.

      He turned to face her, and she put her arms around him. In a moment he had lifted her up, pushed the curtains aside, carried her into the next room, and placed her on the bed. Eiko laughed. He had never told a girl that he loved her but now he told it to Eiko.

      But she was too clever for him. Perhaps it was because he had never been so deeply stirred by a woman before, or because his pace was no match for her eagerness, even though it was he who had challenged first. Eiko seemed to be making him grasp for something out of reach. She twisted away from him before he finally got hold of her. He was caught in a web of her making, and in the end he felt as if it were he who had been seduced.

      When Eiko opened her eyes, he felt a feeling of affection and a respect similar to what he felt toward a stronger opponent in the ring. He had been beaten but he felt the excitement that accompanied the desire for retaliation.

      But can love born of revenge avoid turning into cruel sport? Why was it that he had not savored the happiness he felt when he had first picked Eiko up and held her in his arms?

      Two days later when he was practising in the gym, Sahara came over to him and tapped him.

      "Say, Eiko is outside," he whispered. "She says she's afraid to come in herself!"

      "I can't leave now. Tell her to come in"

      Sahara came back a moment later with Eiko. She was wearing a tight black skirt and a white duster-coat. Everyone looked at her as though she were a handsomely decked out prize-fighter. She walked over to the ring and waved at Tatsuya.

      "I've come to tempt you," she said.

      "What for?"

      "As if you didn't know!" she replied.

      When he had finished his training and was leaving the gym, Eda stopped him.

      "I hope you're not hot for that one. It'll wreck your training—you'll never last more than three rounds."

      Tatsuya and Eiko met for the next three days straight. The second day Tatsuya forgot that they were competing and took another drubbing. On the third night, however, he noticed some dark shadows under her eyes and reckoned he had gained a few points.

      A week later he saw Eiko at a night club. She was with someone he did not know. When she saw Tatsuya, she smiled and nodded at him but went on whispering to the man she was with. Forgetting the girl with him, he flared up for a moment. He wondered if she greeted other men like that when she was with him. For the first time in his life he was jealous, although he did not recognize his feeling as such. He only knew that he was disgusted with her. He pretended to ignore the situation and moved away, knowing that to show his anger would give her a hold over him.

      He wondered what it was about him that interested Eiko. Was he just another man in her life? Weren't all men really the same to her after an affair? It was not simply things like foreign-looking eyes, ability to play a saxophone, sharp clothes, or the image of a man in the ring. Actually to her all men were just trophies for her bedroom. Even though they were not all the same, it was the same thing that she wanted from each. They could not have given her more than just the fact of their manhood.

      Three years before all this, Eiko had been in love. She arranged to meet the man at a hot springs hotel in Yugawara. There she would surrender herself to him. Each left home secretly. Eiko was to arrive at the hotel first. She had not been waiting very long when there was a phone call for her from a nearby hospital. The man had been killed in a collision at a railway crossing. Before he died, he had given Eiko's name and the hotel where she was. The sight of the car, smashed and flattened, made her obsessed with the destruction of other men she loved after that.

      Long before, when she was still a little girl, Eiko had grown precociously fond of two of her cousins. They were both killed in the war. After the additional loss of the man she was to have met at Yugawara, she turned into a girl determined to take from men and give nothing in return.

      Her first victim was the brother of a friend. He was newly married and Eiko felt a pang of jealousy about his romantic affection for his wife. Soon he became fascinated, forgot his young bride, and ran madly after Eiko. By the time his poor wife heard of the affair, Eiko had already finished with the man.

      Her experiences with men changed her into a woman who had to sleep with any man she was attracted to. But sometimes she asked herself what it was she really wanted from life. She would sob to herself in the anguish of what she thought was love, but as soon as the tension was relieved, she realized that she was not in love at all and became sickened by the man's desire for her. She regretted she was no longer the unsophisticated girl she had been before the fatal car accident. She felt as if her former self had died with the man she had loved.

      The city creates unusual happenings, such as chance meetings of men and women. Eiko and Tatsuya had met like this. But that time it was Tatsuya who had made the first move. She treasured that fact. During the two months they had known each other, she had not once made the first move. Although she did not realize it herself, perhaps she was beginning to expect something significant from their chance meeting.

      Her attitude to life did not allow her to give, and yet she knew that even if she took everything that Tatsuya had to offer, she could never regain her lost innocence. If she got angry or impatient with Tatsuya that third night, it was not because of him; the anger and impatience were directed against herself.

      When a week later she saw Tatsuya at the night club, she had been with the cousin of a friend. The chance meeting had given her the opportunity to analyze her feelings for Tatsuya objectively.

      Tatsuya had felt insulted rather than jealous. It was the same feeling he had had once before when he had an affair with a cheap striptease dancer. Her lover, boss of the quarter, told him to break it off. Tatsuya had quickly bowed out strategically before it came to blows.

      About a week after he had seen Eiko at the night club, Eda came up to him in the gym.

      "How's Eiko?" he asked, posing indifferently.

      "So so. I see quite a bit of her these days," replied Tatsuya.

      "Wasn't she dancing with you at the Caspian Club the other night? I should have come over and joined you."

      Tatsuya had not been to the Caspian for a long time. He was angry at Eda's remarks but did not show it.

      That evening Tatsuya went to a night club as usual with some of his friends. During the course of the evening the hostess who had been sitting at their table suddenly left them and went across to another table. Nishimura, who had been interested in the girl, was a little annoyed at her disappearance. Tatsuya turned around to see what was happening at the other table. One of the three men at the table was amusing the girls with jokes and gestures. He looked vaguely familiar to Tatsuya. It was the man who had been with Eiko at the other night club. And it might have been the same man that Eda had seen her with at the Caspian two days before. Tatsuya casually asked one of the hostesses who he was.

      "He's the leader of the Five Roses combo. I think he plays the trumpet. His band is doing very well at the Caspian."

      When the man got up and moved onto the dance floor, Tatsuya grabbed a partner and followed. He danced the girl close to the man in order to step on his foot, but another couple got in the way and instead the man trod on Tatsuya's foot. The man merely cast a glance at Tatsuya and moved away. Tatsuya was furious. Perhaps the man thought it was not necessary to apologize because he was tall and thick-set, while Tatsuya appeared to be rather skinny in his fashionably tight suit.

      Tatsuya was about to say something

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