Chapter 10
KIT
Pontocho Alley looks exactly the way I envision old-school Japan used to, with traditional machiya dark wood townhouses crammed together down a narrow street, which bustles with tourists, their path lit by the soft glow of paper lanterns.
If it wasn’t for the modern dress of the crowds around us, all super-focused on finding somewhere to serve them their dinner, you could easily imagine you’ve time-travelled back a hundred years.
In my mind’s eye, I can even see the ghosts of geishas gliding out of the doorways, it’s that visceral a scene.
The street is cobbled and uneven so as we make our way down it, we have to watch our step as we dodge between groups of people who regularly stop dead in their tracks to check out menus outside the many eateries.
When we finally decide on which sashimi restaurant we want to try – they all look so inviting it’s difficult to know which one to choose – we have to wait until they have room to accommodate us.
It’s not long until a table comes free though and we’re taken to be seated by a large window that looks out over the Kamo river.
The nightlights along the riverbank illuminate the slow-flowing water, making it glint in the darkness.
‘Well, this is pretty special,’ Chloe says, looking around her with an expression of happy satisfaction.
‘Yeah. It’s great,’ I agree, staring down at the menu, which has a huge range of colourful-looking sashimi dishes on it.
Even though each one looks like a work of art, in all honesty, none of it looks particularly appetising, but I remind myself I’m here for the challenge of trying something new and different and shouldn’t judge it till I’ve tried it.
So when the server comes to the table to take our order I just stab at a couple of things on the menu, not really having much of a clue what I’m ordering.
Chloe seems to be taking a more thoughtful approach though, because she asks the server about a couple of the dishes before making her choices.
When we’re finally left alone, she leans in conspiratorially and surprises me by saying, ‘I have no idea what’s going to arrive. Fingers crossed it’s edible.’
I let out a laugh at that, feeling a sense of relief that I’m not on my own here, having to pretend I’m totally cool about what I’m about to encounter.
We’re in this together.
I never felt like that when I was with Katya. She always wanted us both to appear to be super confident at all times.
Warmth floods my chest and I take a long drink of the glass of tap water that was delivered to our table while we perused the menus.
‘Thanks for coming with me. I’d feel a bit strange about coming to a restaurant here on my own,’ Chloe says, the corner of her mouth twisting into a grimace.
‘My pleasure,’ I say, meaning it. ‘I’m very much enjoying playing the role of hot ex-lover who’s not only great in bed but an excellent dinner companion too.’ I flip her a grin.
She smiles back, but I can tell I’ve hit a troubled nerve.
‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘We don’t have to talk about that right now if you’d rather not.’
‘No, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to bring the mood down. It just keeps hitting me at odd moments that my whole life is going to be very different from now on. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Just something I’m going to have to get used to.’
Picking up her own glass of water, she takes a sip. ‘I suspect there are going to be a lot of people wondering aloud why he did that to me, especially as he comes across as such a good guy.’
I nod in understanding.
‘I’m not looking forward to answering all the kindly meant but incredibly awkward questions about how I’m doing when I get back,’ she continues. ‘I wish I could just stay here where it’s simple.’
Yeah, me too, I find myself thinking.
Our food arrives then and we glance at each other and smile before picking up our chopsticks and selecting our first piece of raw fish to try.
I watch her face as she chews, aware that the food I’m eating is actually a lot better tasting than I was expecting.
In fact it’s actually pretty delicious. It seems Chloe’s having the same experience because she gives me a surprised smile and picks up another bit of food right away, dips it in the little saucer of soy sauce and eats it.
‘Pretty good, huh?’ I say.
‘Yeah. It’s actually really nice. Softer than I imagined it would be and less fishy, bizarrely.’
We eat in silence for another minute or so, but I seem to be incapable of sitting there quietly for long with all the questions I want to ask her buzzing through my head now that she’s started to open up to me.
‘Did you have any inkling at all that things with Thingy-ma-jig were going to go tits up?’ I blurt, unable to keep it in any longer.
She sighs and leans back in her chair, running her hand through her hair in agitation.
‘In retrospect, yeah, I guess I did. But I just kept ignoring my instincts because I didn’t want to think about how I was going to explain to everyone that the wedding was off.
I thought it would work itself out, I guess.
And it became a matter of personal pride that it went ahead. ’
‘So it was more about not being humiliated than actually wanting to be married to him?’
Her shoulder lifts in an awkward shrug. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. We were together for four years so I guess I just thought getting married to him was a done deal. We’ve always been good friends and agreed on pretty much everything, so he seemed like a good choice of partner.’
‘Even though he didn’t really ding your bell sexually?’
She frowns at that. ‘It wasn’t that he didn’t ding it.
Things were fine in bed. Not the most exciting sex I’ve ever had, sure, but not terrible.
I just decided to prioritise being with a good, steady, reliable partner.
He seemed like a better long-term bet than someone who made all my sexual fantasies come true but probably wouldn’t stick around in the tough times. ’
‘Except he did neither in the end.’
She rubs her hand over her eyes, then grimaces. ‘You don’t need to remind me. I’m very aware of how na?ve I was to trust him so absolutely.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel worse. I guess I’m pissed off on your behalf about the way he treated you.’
I look up from my plate to see there are tears in her eyes, which she’s determinedly blinking back.
‘You okay?’ I ask, worried by the depth of emotion on her face.
She just nods, then puts down her chopsticks and says in a quiet voice, ‘I really thought he adored me. He always acted like he did. But I wonder now if that’s actually all it was: an act.
’ Her brow pinches into a tight frown. ‘But I don’t think so.
I think he did really love me, just not enough and not in the right way.
And yeah, maybe we would have got bored with each other anyway.
I suppose being good friends is all well and good, but maybe you need fire and chemistry too to keep things fresh and interesting as time passes.
That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway. ’
‘Did you know he was into guys?’ I ask, hoping I’m not crossing a line with that question. It seems like she needs to talk though, so I figure I may as well ask it all now.
She pauses for a moment, as if seriously considering this, before saying, ‘He told me a couple of years into our relationship he’d wondered whether he might be bisexual.
Just mentioned it offhandedly one day, then quickly changed the subject, like he was just musing on it, but it didn’t really mean anything.
He’d had a pretty strict, religious upbringing and I think his parents put the fear of God into him about how they thought being gay was a sin and basically implied they’d cut him out of the family if he ever ventured anywhere near it.
So he’d never explored that part of himself. ’
‘So it wasn’t a total shock when you found out about his male colleague?’
‘Not a total shock about that, no. And in a weird way I’m happy for him that he finally felt brave enough to engage with what he obviously really wants and needs. It was the lying and cheating part that hit me right in the guts.’
‘Yeah, I bet. It was a fucked-up thing to do to you. Especially waiting for your wedding day to come clean about it.’
She nods. ‘It was so weird because I was totally calm right after he told me. It was as if someone else had taken over my mind and my body and I was being manipulated like a puppet. I felt almost… excited. Like I was suddenly taking part in an immersive play. I think it must have been the adrenaline that flooded through me. A fight or flight response gone haywire. Then it was like I was outside my own body, watching the whole drama unfold. I went into practical mode and very calmly asked him to tell me all the details. I needed to know every single thing that had happened. How. When. Who knew. It was a coping mechanism I suppose.’
‘Yeah, well, we all respond to stressful situations in different ways,’ I say with sympathy.
The smile she gives me is filled with pain.
‘I’m ashamed to admit it now, but my overriding response was to want to have sex with him.
I guess to try and reclaim him or something.
Or prove to myself I still had some sort of hold on him.
Some control. I feel so humiliated, thinking about it now.
He rejected me, obviously, when I tried to kiss him, idiot that I was. ’
‘Fuck, that’s fierce. No wonder you’re so cut up about it.’
She lets out a long breath through her nose, her shoulders slumping a little.
‘Walking into the room where the wedding was meant to take place and having to stand there in front of everyone in my obscenely expensive wedding dress and explain it wasn’t going to happen that day, or any day in the future, was the worst, most humbling moment of my life.
But I did it. My voice was shaky, but somehow I was able to get the words out without crying.
I was practicality personified.’ She flashes me a sad, wry smile.
‘I’m actually proud of myself for doing that.
I didn’t break down and beg someone else to do it for me.
It was important to me though, to handle it myself.
I had to face it head on. Look it in the eye.
Take ownership of the whole shitshow in order to be able to carry on.
I would have hated to look back and been even more ashamed about falling apart. ’
‘Which would have been a reasonable response, considering the trauma of the situation,’ I point out gently.
‘Yeah, I suppose so. I didn’t actually feel the full emotional horror of it all until a day later.
But even then, I couldn’t cry. I was just…
numb. Then the next day, when I woke up, I felt a bit like I was going mad.
I just couldn’t believe it had happened.
That something I was so sure of, so convinced I knew to be true, turned out to be a sham.
It made me question every other thing – every other relationship I have.
When you feel like you can’t trust your own instincts any more it’s a total head-fuck. ’
‘I hear you.’
‘At least he had the balls to stop the wedding before it was a done deal,’ she says quietly now. ‘It would have been hellish to have to go through the ordeal of a divorce instead – especially if we’d ended up having kids together.’
Her voice breaks on the last couple of words and tears spill out of her eyes and run down her face. She swipes them away, clearly embarrassed.
My heart goes out to her, and I reach over and cover her hand with one of mine.
‘Fuck. Sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about this right now. I really don’t want to sit here crying in the middle of a restaurant, ruining your night.’
‘No need to apologise, Dasher, Jesus. For what it’s worth, I think you’re really impressive – coming here to Japan on your own. Just getting on with it and moving on. That shows real guts.’
‘You’re here on your own too,’ she points out, her voice broken with tears.
I shrug. ‘Sure. But I’ve had more time to work through my feelings about the end of my relationship than you have.’
This seems to make her more upset though, rather than less, which is what I was actually going for with that compliment. Her face is screwed up now, like she’s fighting hard not to sob out loud.
‘Hey, do you want to get out of here?’ I ask.
She nods, seemingly unable to speak now.
‘Okay, I’ll get the bill,’ I say, then turn away to grab the attention of our server and make the international sign for paying. Then I call my driver to come and pick us up.
Thankfully, we’re handed our bill quickly, and I pay up and we leave the restaurant, Chloe forging the way with her head dipped and her loose hair hiding most of her face.
I really feel for her.
Not only is she feeling shitty about the way she was dumped, she’s also humiliated about showing it.
I have a strong urge to pull her against me and tell her everything’s going to be okay – and then actually make it okay – but I know that’s not something under my control, no matter how much money I throw at it.
So I just follow her out and grab her hand, which I’m glad to find she doesn’t shrug off, then walk with her back to the end of the road where our car is waiting for us.
She’s quiet all the way back to the hotel and I don’t say anything either, aware that I might make her cry again with any question I ask.
When we pull up and get out in front of the main entrance, I hang back a little, waiting to see what she wants to do.
Turning, she fixes me with a surprisingly steady smile and says, ‘I’d totally understand if you want to go and hang out with people who aren’t killing your mood right now.’
‘Do you want me to?’ I ask. ‘Because, honestly, I’d rather keep hanging with you.’
Her smile widens and her gaze flicks away from mine for a second, then back again. ‘I’d like you to come to my room with me,’ she says. There’s a flash of something in her eyes, like a fire’s been lit in her brain.
Is she thinking about our revenge sex pact again?
I hope so.
‘Sure. Sounds good,’ I say, mentally crossing my fingers, but telling myself not to assume anything.
I actually don’t care if we don’t have sex.
I just want to be with her right now.