Chapter Seven:

The girl was out. One moment she was there, unsure, watching him with increasing incredulity – the next she seemed to just fold in on herself. Robert caught her as she tumbled, her body waif-like and limp. He lifted her onto the small bench seat and checked her pulse at her neck before calling Misaki. His dealer hadn’t sounded particularly concerned, making a quip about how he made women faint. But Robert knew her well enough to know that she was defusing the situation, alleviating his stress by taking possession of the event. Two members of security were en-route with a stretcher, she explained, and an ambulance had been called just in case. He was to wait – to monitor her status and to tell her if anything changed. 

He had been pacing while she spoke, but when she told him to sit he did, lowering himself to the floor and crossing his legs. The girl couldn’t have been more than a teenager, her features still soft with the promise of growth. Her breathing was steady and smooth, her chest rising and falling against the pretty silk dress that made her at once dainty, emphasising her age, and yet sophisticated like an older woman who has had many years to discover the style of dress best suited to her features.

Everything was much more real when she was lying in front of him. The job seemed even stranger when he looked down at the girl. He chewed on his lip, wishing that he had another drink to calm his nerves. Five million dollars and a loft apartment that was probably worth a fair percentage of that on top. The money had gotten the better of him. The promise of renewed comfort and the possibility of a new space in which to create had swept him off his feet. Without asking enough questions he had accepted Shin Takami’s offer, his mind filling with the madness of a gambler. But the truth was worse – he hadn’t really asked any questions. The chance of rebuilding his self-esteem had immediately stripped him of moral-worth.

Sitting with the girl he realised just how stupid he was. 

Who was the impeccably dressed Takami working for? 

What could an exceptionally wealthy Texan want with such a young girl? 

What if he did what they asked and they sold her into slavery or prostitution? 

His mind reeled with all of the things that he had been too drunk, and too stupid to ask when Takami had called. 

Robert took her hand gently to examine the silver medical bracelet she wore – her wrist was slender and delicate. In his palm, her fingers were long and cold, the nails painted simply in a soft pink that matched her outfit. The bracelet was plain polished silver with no discernible markings or data. He imagined that it contained a digital medical history that doctors or paramedics could access easily with the swipe of a scanner of some kind. 

Her fingers twitched against his skin and she exhaled loudly – a word that he didn’t quite catch, issuing from her lips. Robert almost jumped to his feet, but her fingers closed around his and she turned her head to look at him, her eyes peeking out through hooded lids. Her irises widened for a moment before shrinking as her eyes flared-up with recognition. He squeezed her hand, glad that she was awake, but torn about how he could interact with her sincerely. 

Her lips, like two pieces of soft fruit, parted as though she was going to speak, but for several seconds nothing happened. 

“It’s really you…” Her voice crept up her throat in a whisper. “I can’t believe…” A hand shot upwards, pressing against her forehead as her eyes closed, her eyebrows creased with concentration. “Oh God!” Her hands moved to her mouth, her head turning back towards the ceiling. “I’m so sorry! I… I didn’t recognise you! I didn’t mean… God! I’m such an idiot!”

The girl sat up abruptly and Robert leant back, away from her, in surprise. She steadied herself with her hands and swivelled to lower her feet onto the ground. In the green light, her dress shimmered in mauve. Robert could hear voices and see lights coming around the corner into the little bamboo garden. He stood awkwardly, his knees sore from crossing his legs. Her eyes locked with his in a horrified expression.

“I’m so embarrassed… I’m so, so sorry… I’ve probably ruined everything!” The words were muffled by the hands that she still had covering her mouth.

“You have nothing to apologise for.” He opened his hands and shrugged his shoulders slowly. “Are you alright?”

But, before she could answer, the two security officers were upon them, helping her to her feet, escorting her from the room while she glanced back over her shoulder towards him. He followed the three of them at a short distance, covering his eyes with a hand as they passed through the iridescent lightscape of the Ego. Misaki’s voice was in his ear as he walked, trailing far enough behind the trio so that he could speak to her.

She had been listening the whole time, having not ended his earlier call in case anything about her condition changed. Her voice was soft inside his head, soothing – a voice that he had listened to for so many years that it could instantly calm him. When they reached the exit to the observation deck, Misaki was waiting for them. She handled the situation without conference, thanking the security guards, and directing the waiting paramedics to attend to the girl. The space was still crowded but the attendees had opened a wide area for the paramedics and, apart from some gossiping, no one appeared to pay much attention. Robert watched while the girl protested the paramedics’ interest in her well-being, exclaiming that she was fine, just a little shaken. 

Two friends rushed to her aid, peppering her with questions and eventually guiding her to a seat, by the magnificent view of Tokyo, where they plied her with water. While all this was happening, the girl regularly glanced at Robert, her eyes filled with shame and embarrassment. Misaki hovered by the paramedics to thank them for rushing to the event and before she dismissed them she went and spoke to the girl. 

Robert was in a daze. The patrons of the show were remarkably indifferent to the sudden disruption, but he wasn’t too surprised. The Japanese were eager to help whenever there was trouble, but when they knew the situation was being handled by someone professional, they got on with their lives. 

The job had been to take the girl to his apartment. Takami had explained that Quinn Bishop was obsessed with his artwork and that he would be the only person who would be able to get her alone. Robert had wanted to know why but Takami was reluctant to explain. The vague answer he had offered, suggested to him that he was being paid an awful lot of money to bridge a family feud that had estranged the ‘wealthy employer’ from his daughter or niece. At five in the morning, it had seemed like a reasonably noble way to earn a lot of money. But looking at her, sitting by the window, he was no longer so sure about the nobility of the task. 

He desperately needed a drink to clear his head.

Eventually, the girl’s friends took her home and he watched them leave with a heavy lump sitting in his stomach. She embodied the sadness he felt sometimes when he was looking out at the world. Fragile, sick, beautiful, alone. He wanted to fix her, to somehow dispel that terrified look that had filled her eyes. Watching her, he resigned himself to call Takami the moment he reached the Roppongi loft in order to detach himself from the job. He would move out of the apartment the next day, most likely back into the Shibuya room that he had only just left. But anything made more sense than being involved in the secretive, and potentially sordid, affair that Takami had planned.

Robert wanted to be free from it.

It was late when Misaki finally leant her hip against the table where he had made his home for the remainder of the evening. He had convinced one of the bar staff to feed him Scotch and he could feel a cautious dull creeping across his fingers and hands. She looked amazing. He had been wrong to tell her that she looked good. She looked stunning. 

Not for the first time, he wondered why he hadn’t asked her to marry him, but the answer was always obscured by the role she played in his day to day life. Misaki was a woman completely beyond the realm of his understanding. Most women he understood on a very clear, primal level. He felt like he could see their vices and their interests with startling insight, even while he was aware that he could never know them in quite the way they knew themselves. His fundamental isolation from the rest of humanity, and their isolation from one another, meant that there could never be perfect clarity of understanding. But a basic knowledge was possible with most. 

Misaki made him uncomfortably aware of the abyss within others. He loved her on such a necessary level that there was no way to ever truly observe her. Everything was coated in the gauze of his lust for, and respect of, her. She was the Yang to his Yin, impossibly separate, yet essentially connected. Their relationship had started many years ago but once they began working together it had taken on the hue of something so much more serious and so much more important. They lived their own lives, yet they flirted and took one another to bed when they felt the urge. She would check in on him regarding his artwork so that she might best plan the next movement in their joint career, but she didn’t pester him or impose her needs upon him. Her casual indifference highlighted the depth of her interest in his mental wellbeing, but she knew that he would contact her if he was in real trouble. Similarly, Robert knew little about what Misaki did outside of their interactions. He was aware that there were other men, sometimes women, who took her fancy, and he thought that it was wonderful that she could experience them without restriction, following her interests wherever they might carry her. 

She smiled down at him from the edge of the glass tabletop. He wanted to kiss her and unbutton her blouse, to rest his cheek between her small breasts and breathe in the warmth of her while listening to her heartbeat. He wanted to slip her out of the tight skirt so that he might explore her body again with all of his senses. 

Her face grew serious for a second, an inquisitive expression passing over her doll-like features. “She was a big fan of yours, that girl. Perhaps a bigger fan than me. She travelled all the way from Australia to see your show and she was mortified to embarrass herself in front of you.” Misaki turned her palms upwards in a confused gesture. “She obviously doesn’t realise how indifferent you are to embarrassment of that kind. I told her as such, but I don’t think she believed me. So, I arranged for you to meet with her tomorrow afternoon for coffee – a kind of guarantee that she had not made a fool of herself, and a statement that you respected her interest in your work.” Robert’s face twisted with a mask of surprise. “I chose somewhere public – the Tsutaya Starbucks in Shibuya, two o’clock. And before you object – it’s done. She bashfully agreed, and so will you. It’s good press. She’ll probably go home and write an extensive blog post about how wonderful you are and more people will come to see your work.”

After a prolonged pause where Robert looked out the window at the warm electrical glow of Tokyo, he shrugged and agreed, knowing full-well that the meeting would happen whether he acknowledged it or not.

One of the curatorial staff from the museum came to their table to thank them both – Robert for his ‘stunningly evocative’ work, and Misaki for her ‘surgeon-like attention to detail’. They both bowed and thanked him for his words. Once the man had left, Misaki extended a delicate hand to him, her nails reminding him of a question he’d been meaning to ask her.

“Did you have all of your clothes made specifically for the opening? And your nails?” He stood, taking her fingers and kissing her knuckles lightly.

“I’ll explain each piece while you undress me,” she said with a devilish smile. “Now, are you going to show me your new loft?”