You
love this city after dark, the second shift in this sleepless whirlpool of neon
lights and sulfur lamps and flourecent shadows, all amounting to one huge great
underglow that shifts and blurs, dims and brightens as we speed past it all.
You love looking out at Tokyo, knowing that Tokyo can't look back in, that no
one can see your face through the bulletproof black glass. You love the
highlighted anonymnity it brings, to rip through the streets in the middle of
the night, safe in a ton of sleek steel and surrounded by the roar of bristling
motorcyles, making your way. You don't need to imagine that people turn their
heads to stare and wonder as you pass; you know, and you love it.
You love being the biggest bully on the playground at last, reaping the fruits
of your long and vicious struggle. You love having earned this, having fought
tooth and nail for it. You love that you're better than those sweating,
money-grubbing, overdrinking little men whose fathers gave them their
positions, who eat from your hand and stink with fear of you. You love the drug
of being feared; you immerse yourself in it, opening every pore to it,
breathing it in, letting it flow through your body and saturate your being in
distilled safety. You love the icy skin of power and superiority. You love what
kept, keeps, and will keep you alive: You love your iron nerves and razor-wire
heart. You love feeling nothing. You love being above it all.
Because mostly, you love safety.
So, after a fashion, you love the things that keep you safe. The men and women
whose dark wild eyes and quick swords protect you until the last – you love
them. The meter of thirsty silver at your side – you love that. The girl who
has learned to smile a little bit like you do, and who hides in firece madness a
little bit like you do –
You love her.
You love her unquestioning eagerness and her doglike devotion. You love her
desperately clung-to innocence and the blood splattered on her face. You love
her fiery eyes and how they always seem to be drifting back to you. You love
how they close, sometimes, and how she trusts you with all her heart. You love
not ever having to ask her to die for you. You love having it be enough that
you just continue on your course, and allow her to follow at your right-hand side.
You love that she demands nothing in return.
You love speeding at night, safe in your car, with the lights flying past and
the engines like muffled thunder. You love petting her ragged dark hair,
scratching her behind the ear like a cat, feeling her press back against your
hand in rapture. You love her metal-smelling cold hands begging for permission
to touch you. You love her shallow eager breath, and the intensity with which
she wants to make you happy. You love her head between you legs, the ruffled
secret of it all, the silence. You don't know if you love seeing your
reflection staring back at you just then, but it's there, every time.
You love her flushed shaking and how she curls up at your feet and sucks at her
fingers and betrays herself with the honest adoration in her eyes.
And you love saying nothing but, Get up, Go-Go, we're there.