I have seen girls my age all too willing to give themselves to any guy that takes their fancy; this leads to two outcomes, one, and the most common, bitter disappointment, heartache and regret, cause’ you can’t get that little flower back if they take it from you. I have seen it too often before; something in their eyes is dead, even their parents see it. I know my best friend Emerald has lost it. She is like a cheap imitation of the jewel she once was. Now, she is lost and seeking a way back to innocence she may never find, but that doesn’t mean she won’t find it. The only way a girl will find that again, and here is my second example, is to find it first in herself, to rediscover it.
For flesh tears, burns, bleeds, and scars, but so too the heart, a more enduring wound. I had seen it in my mother’s eyes after she started dating again a few months after my father died. Loneliness and grief is a cruel master, but desperation is a vicious tyrant.
Yup, she would say, “Beryl, don’t make the same mistakes I made. Being alone is no excuse for dumping common sense!”
Yeah, right mother, and now she is a popular topic of gossip at university and in our street. I cringe every time they look in my direction. People would start whispering in what they supposed were ‘low tones’ ek! Give me a break, it’s not half-obvious, discretion is not a skill easy to acquire by those idiots on campus or in our street.
I would smirk, and say something like, “have a good time talking about other people again, showing the world how much of a bitch each of you are, and how immature!”
Oh, their feathers would fly, the caustic comments that belie such low-life detritus would pour out of their sweet pretty mouths, hypocrisy on steroids, and I would glare at them, then laugh, and say something like, “And you’re the future of twenty-first century Japan? Ha! Please…,” to which they would throw more insults.
I would respond by a not so lady-like hand gesture and say, “Bite me!” and laugh, turning on my heel -- not so easy to do if you’re wearing a party dress and high heels-- and be on my way. That is the price for looking gorgeous and sophisticated, something those little twits will never accomplish in their wildest dreams.
So, memories light the corners of my…that old song mother used to play all the time. I hated it. For all I would see was a woman sacrificing herself to the past, not getting on with her life and picking men scared of real commitment and only wanting a good time. Then there were those infrequent encounters in the kitchen in the morning, a nervous or distracted guy. Some of them I must say were cute, but they never stuck around more than a couple of ‘dates’ making my blood boil.
One tried to hit on me once, his hand riding up my thigh as I found myself crawling backwards on the sofa, using my stilettos as protective prods to guard my maidenhead. But he was playing with me and I was a little scared. But when he slid his hand under the hem of my skirt, I saw red. Now that is not on. No matter if he was good looking or not. I was sixteen. He was in his mid-fifties for crying out loud, and I wouldn’t have him screwing both mother and I. So, being a dutiful and loyal daughter, I slapped him. But unfortunately, for me, he took this as acquiescence, laughed, and chased me all over the house while my mother had passed out from the binge drinking, not to mention her all-nighter sex romp with this rabid overgrown teenager.
He tried to corner me and in the end, I hit him with a vase full of pink and purple tulips, knocking him out cold and called Kunzite.
He was a big guy and yet, his manners were impeccable. He slung the unconscious would-be offender over his shoulder, put the creep in the passenger seat of his car then fished in his pockets for the keys and drove him home.
Kunzite sat on the leather lounge looking at the snoring prone figure lying on the plush purple rug, waiting for him to regain consciousness so he could - roughed him up a bit.
I got the call a couple of hours later and laughed. Small entertainment for small minds you might say. But yes, it was satisfying. But no sooner had I boasted of my triumph to defend my honor and that of my mother, did I cop an earful. As they say, 'No good deed goes unpunished! 'And boy did I get it!
It was mom’s favorite vase. Forget, mother, that your, ’date, all-but tried to bed me on the sofa. I just huffed, said something profound like, “Yes mother, whatever…”, and walked off.
But yes, my life at home did have its advantages. I paid for the food I ate and the bills, often I had to pay these as mother would forget and or would have spent the money clubbing. But I didn’t have the hassles of trying to find a place for all my things, my cats, and have my privacy, and that was most of the time except when mother dearest was painting the town red and any number of color-coordinated shades you could think up. She did it with flare; I will say that for her. And, I got free internet, a credit card equivalent of 15000 US dollars, and a room with a great view as mother worked for a large computer corporation and pulled in a good salary. I paid the bills not because she couldn’t afford to, but because she plain forgot after one of her drinking sprees, she had once every couple of weeks on her days off.
Going out on the town to nightspots and dancing to all hours, yeah, I used to do this myself until around six months back. But since snaring my boyfriend, once a month was okay, but gave it up in the end.
In short, I grew Sick of the brawls and ambulances taking off some poor bastard to the hospital; it was worse when one of these lads was king-hit and died, the predators looking for easy underage meat; seeing said scantily clad fourteen-year-olds dressed like prostitutes trying to hit on the good-looking bouncers to let them in. Please, where are their parents! They hover around giggling and staring at the hot guys, who would, the gentlemen amongst their ranks that is, chastise these little girls playing a dangerous dress up game and where possible call them a taxi and see they got into the car.
Most of these cool guys shaking their heads as the taillights faded from view, and these were the girls that listened. Otherwise, all they could do was tell them to go home and keep out of trouble, leaving these little airheads disappointed when rejected.
The only men that would show interest in the little schoolgirls in their handkerchief dresses and high-heeled pedestals designed to accentuate the length of their bare legs as they stood around shivering in the cold Tokyo winter night were sleazy undesirables of the lowest kind.
As the doors of the venue finally closed at 4 AM or thereabouts; these kids would be puking all over the sidewalk, or on themselves, or in a cab, their would-be over-aged pedophile lovers, These lowlifes pumping them with so-called party drugs in order to get a night of sick pleasure and ruin the lives of these naive nubile Lolita’s. Get a life and go home instead of waking up and finding yourselves with morning sickness and a drug habit - idiots!
So, I stopped frequenting these haunts, preferring instead other social climates where you could at least hear yourself think, where your drink wouldn’t be spiked, or suffer some idiot trying to sell drugs or force these into your hand and grope you and offer an expectant smile. No, I had enough! I grew tired of the three day wringing ears, and having the loud boom box coming out of my ass while I was trying to have fun, feeling as if it would at any moment burst from my ribcage like some dance floor parody of ‘Aliens’ Argh!’
Well, thought and memory still swim around in my head, a head without frontiers it seemed.
Poor mother, but I had a life to live and my Youma, were night terrors of the most frightening kind. Oh, the blood, death and destruction of these voyeuristic landscapes haunted my dreams – no, nightmares: men with swords of crystal, cutting down women and children, or anyone unfortunate enough to raise their ire with merciless abandon. Most disturbing was the fact Kunzite was there and I was screaming at him to kill a guy I used to have a crush on in junior high, Chiba Mamoru.
Kunz was pure evil. The force in his eyes, the death he would leave in his wake and it was I, calling the shots. I hated the dreams and the bitch I was in them. It would take almost half a day to shake off one of these night terrors, for that’s what they were.
One day, I decided to join a dream group on campus to help expiate these dreams, bad mistake, or at least I thought so at the time. I strode into the room in my usual flamboyant fashion. My hair tied in a ponytail atop my head, its tresses cascading to my hips in ringlets, my dark shades, and stylish frames, covering my almost red eyes, a rare and unusual genetic trait nobody could quite explain to my mother and father or myself. But there you have it. I had on my sexy cut-off jean shorts, black silk stockings, silver pumps and a matching shoulder bag. Oh, and my five black T-shirt sporting a pair of large pink lips with the caption, ‘Take me and taste me’ scrolled in calligraphic bright orange underneath was my wild-woman look that I wanted to exude, cynical as I was about most things.
I struggled within with this decision to enroll in this course; I really did. I wanted answers, sure, but told myself I wouldn’t get them. I knew, somehow, deeper within, that I was meant to be there the moment I set sight on the ‘Dream Mistress’ calling herself, Lady Usagi! I knew that name, but from where I couldn’t say. She even looked familiar, I thought, as I winked at the prim and proper girl in her well cut suit seated like a royal monarch behind the grey steel desk with a hot-pink cloth tossed over it and a C-pod computer to one side with a crystal memory sphere sitting in its cradle.
She smiled and returned to her notes. Usagi’s outfit consisted of a light-blue pleated skirt, a figure flattering jacket, pink blouse and white sandals. She wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, like the ones Kunz wore when we teased the book club guys though these were more sophisticated.
Lady Usagi wore her hair in the weirdest way. I recognized the two bunny-like ears of gold floating about her petite frame as she flounced into her squeaky brown leather chair. I had to suppress a giggle as I dropped into the first seat I could find near the back of the class next to the window looking out onto a grassy knoll. I could see in the background a shimmering lake, my emergency escape if I got bored. But boring was the last thing this day would be as the first session unfolded.
I scanned the room, taking in its occupants. There were girls and guys of all ages and nationalities. The guys I observed, some of them quite cute, piqued my interest. I then turned my attention to the fabulous paintings depicting several dream landscapes and star charts. These were not only intricate, but also pretty. Whoever did these had talent.
I felt grudging respect for the woman at the front of the classroom, as she folded her hands in front of her, waiting for the last of the stragglers to take their seats.
But what freaked me out was when she introduced a chart with a strange picture in the top left hand corner as the holographic image hovered above the floor for all to see.
“Thank you for enrolling in my dream and personal magic class. The class of 2013, I hope will be an enjoyable one for you all and you gain much from it. Please read your digital reading packs. Inside, there are two crystal pods. One is the course structure, and the other, reading and holo-movies to assist you to draw the most from our program and understand the power of dreams and what these mean and how to unlock their many secrets.”
She looked at me then. Was that recognition flickering there within those intense azure eyes of hers, cutting through my pretensions, my fear. I blinked. Did I say fear? Usagi’s gaze seemed to be penetrating my mind. Then something akin to puzzlement made her pause and take a second look.
I felt uncomfortable. I shifted uneasily in my seat, drew my legs to my chest in a protective gesture, and hugged my knees. I blinked again. She turned to a goggle-eyed guy in the front row by the name of Umino, and smiled. She then continued, “Today, I would like to show you a chart uncovered in a tomb discovered under an abandoned Shinto site. We don’t know how old it is. Some say it is tens of thousands of years old, others say its only 1000 years. But it has a planet here, look carefully.”
I could only stare, speechless. It was Nemesis, and I knew it, but how?
