The Windup Girl полностью

Emiko feels a rush of relief. She hurries to ready herself and then she's slipping down the stairs. Raleigh has arranged that the white shirts will only come and raid at specific times, and so she has assurance that within the confines of Ploenchit she can do as she likes. Nevertheless she is cautious. There were three raids early on, before the new patterns were settled. A number of owners spat blood before a new detente was agreed upon. Not Raleigh though. Raleigh seems to have a supernatural understanding of the workings of enforcement and bureaucracy.

Outside Ploenchit, Anderson is waiting in his rickshaw, smelling of whiskey and tobacco, his face rough with evening stubble. She leans against him. "I hoped you would come."

"I'm sorry it took so long. Things are a bit unsettled for me."

"I missed you." She is surprised to find that it is true.

They ease through the night traffic, past shambling shadow megodonts and cheshire flickers, past burning candles and sleeping families. They pass white shirt uniforms patrolling, but the officers are busy checking a vegetable stall. The green illumination of the gas lights flickers over them.

"Are you all right?" He nods at the white shirts. "Is the Ministry raiding?"

"It was bad at first. But now it is better."

There was panic during the first raids, as the white shirts stormed up the stairwells rousting mama-sans, shutting off pirate methane taps, swinging their batons. Ladyboys screaming, owners rushing to find more cash and then falling under the clubs when they failed to bribe their way free. Emiko had huddled amongst the other girls, still as a statue as the white shirts stalked the bar, pointing out problems, threatening to beat them all until they couldn't earn. Not a trace of good humor in them, only anger at the loss of their Tiger, only an urge to teach lessons to everyone who had ever laughed at white shirt rules.

Terror. Nearly pissing herself as she held still amongst the girls, sure that Kannika would shove her out and reveal her, that she would choose this moment to effect Emiko's demise.

Raleigh, performing careful obeisances to all of them, a farce for some of the regular takers of his bribes, some of them even looking directly at her-Suttipong and Addilek and Thanachai-all of them fully aware of her and her role in the place, having gone so far as to sample her even, and all of them staring at her, trying to decide if they would "discover" her. Everyone playing their roles, and Emiko waiting for Kannika to break the charade, to force everyone to look at the windup girl that had been so lucrative a source for bribes.

Emiko shivers at the memory. "It is better now," she says again.

Anderson-sama nods.

Their rickshaw stops in front of his building. He climbs down first, checks to ensure that no white shirts are about, then ushers her inside. The paired security guards scrupulously ignore her existence. When she leaves, she will tip them to make sure that they forget entirely. She may disgust them, but they will play along if she is respectful, and if she pays. With the white shirts on edge, she will have to pay more. But it can be done.

She and Anderson-sama enter the elevator, and the elevator woman calls out the estimated weight, her face carefully expressionless.

Safely inside his flat, they come together. Emiko is surprised at how happy she is that he delights in her, that he runs his hands over her skin, that he wishes to touch her. She has forgotten what it is to look almost human, to be nearly respected. In Japan, there was no such compunction about looking upon her. But here she feels as if she is an animal every day.

It is a relief to be loved, even if it is only for her physicality.

His hands run over her breasts, down across her stomach, slip between her legs, burrow deeper. She is relieved that it is easy, that he will know her pleasure. Emiko presses herself to him, and their mouths find one another, and for a time she forgets entirely that people call her windup and heechy-keechy. For a moment she feels entirely human, and she loses herself in the touching. In Anderson-sama's skin. In the security of pleasure and duty.

But after their union, her depression returns.

Anderson-sama brings her cool water, solicitous of her exertion. He lies down beside her, naked, careful not to touch, not to add to the heat she has built up. "What's the matter?" he asks.

Emiko shrugs, tries to make herself into a smiling New Person. "It is nothing. Nothing that can be changed." It's almost impossible to speak her needs. It goes against all her nature. Mizumi-sensei would strike her for it.