Demon Stories

Beau: The Most Familiar Phrase, 1994, Japan

I wanted to throw-up.

Swallowing instead, I sauntered over to the seat next to him. I thought about clapping him on the back like the old friend his scent suggested. I chose a different tact.

"Wine, please, any year any place," I said seductively to the barkeep in English, plopping down next to this man I once knew.

"No wine here, Princess," said the barkeep, "no foreigners either. Can't you read?"

Yes, I can.

Now was the time. "Ohh!" I cried out loudly and dramatically, "this man, this Japanese man is my husband! Ohh! He'll tell you! Honey, tell him!!" I grabbed onto the man with the American cigarette and familiar smell tightly with so much force it caused him to spill his beer all over me. Perfect as peaches.

In an instant, the man with the familiar smell was up and trying to pat me down with bar napkins as quietly as the room had gotten and all eyes were on us. The barkeep looked like he was going absolutely insane, clearly clashed between helping a lady and keeping the rules of his boss' establishment. So, choosing both, he grabbed an umbrella from behind the bar and started smacking the man with it, yelling, "Get out of here! Get out of here! Please, don't come back!" What a classic way to get me, the intruder, out. Since it was now established to everyone that I must be this man's foreign wife, if he left I would surely leave, too. Perfect, perfect.

We hurried outside into the falling snow and immediately the chatter from inside started again.

I smiled. "Give me your American coat, its cold," I grinned to him, arms outstretched.

"Its Japanese, and no," he said coldly.

"Goddamn, really?" I asked, touching the soft leather sleeve at the wrist as if inspecting it.

"Like you believe in their god," he said, stiffly allowing this overly familiar touching because I am older.

"Hmm, well, where's your's?" I asked, holding the opening of his sleeve with my fingertips so he couldn't get away.

"Wouldn't know," he said causually to all others but me.

"Yeah, right. Where is she? Where's your Swallowtail?"

He chuckled and I felt a chill as his whole demeanor changed. Damn, that pretty face could still lull me into a false sense of security.

He yanked his sleeve from me. I let out a small involuntary gasp and hated myself for it.

He leaned in to my face like lovers, yet his face defiant as the youth in the face of a teacher.

"Noone can control me anymore, old man," he spat. I flinched. "She's always watching and you can't tell she's there. She lets me do what I want, go anywhere I want. Victor can't control me anymore, so why is he still controlling you? If you can't see the freedom she brings, you must be blind."

I paused. My heart was trembling in sadness and love. Despair and love. I touched his face and he didn't shy away. His face softened ever so slightly, my fingers like a familiar old phrase to his tired heart. 

"You are the one  who is blind," I said gently.

As quickly as an angry dog lashes, he threw my hand down to my waist. I'm sure a sliver of respect ceased him from throwing me into the snow like a disgrace altogether.

"You're all she talks about!" he lashed, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm second! I'm always second! As it was with your Victor, as it is with your Swallowtail!" His dear beautiful face was a fury. 

"Shh! Goddamn, do you think she can not hear you?! Do you think she is not watching? Do you think Victor is not watching either?"

"I told you, it doesn't matter, I'm free!"

I couldn't stand it.

I grabbed his wrists with all my might to make sure he couldn't move. With one swift loving movement, I pulled him close to me in like a lovers' embrace.

"No, Saya," I whispered lower than sound, trying to keep away my tears, "we are never free. We are never ever free."

He was furious. Furious as a fool.

"Let go of me!" He cried out. His yell alerted passerby and there was staring once again. I had no choice but to unhold him. I let go looking surprised but the heart in my eyes told him deepest betrayal.

"Don't ever look for me again," he said, breathing hard in anger. "I'm finished with you. Finished with your kind. You are nothing to me." He spat at my feet and turned to go.

He began to walk away aggressively in as a show to others all around us to make it look like a break up between boyfriend and girlfriend. 

Desperate, I had to play the only card I had to try to save him. The only card I knew he would listen to.

"Wait!" I yelled. "Wait! Please, wait, I have something you want! I know you want her!"

He slowed but still was walking, clearly listening now.

I smiled in a small twinge of relief.

"Its the one you yourself have been looking for, you know her? The one you want. She's in town. I know where she is. Her scent. If you stay with me, I'll lead you to her," I called to him with hands surrounding my mouth.

Instead of stopping, he hurried up. With his next words, my heart fell.

"Fool," he said, using the most insulting form possible to me, "I already smelled her in your skin."

Then, using the most familiar phrase there is, he simply walked away.