Nagasawa would urge me to talk, and girls would...
Nagasawa would urge
me to talk, and girls would respond to me with the same smiles of
admiration they offered himHe worked his magic, a real talent he had
that impressed me every timeCompared with Nagasawa, Kizuki's
conversational gifts were child's playThis was a completely different
level of accomplishmentAs much as I found myself caught up in
Nagasawa's power, though, I still missed KizukiI felt a new
admiration for his sincerityWhatever talents he had he would share
with Naoko and me alone, while Nagasawa was bent on disseminating
his considerable gifts to all around himNot that he was dying to sleep
with the girls he found: it was just a game to him
I was not too crazy about sleeping with girls I didn't knowIt was an
easy way to take care of my sex drive of course, and I did enjoy all the
holding and touching, but I hated the morning afterI'd wake up and
find this strange girl sleeping next to me, and the room would reek dior saddle of
alcohol, and the bed and the lighting and the curtains had that special
"love hotel" garishness, and my head would be in a hungover fog
Then the girl would wake up and start groping around for her knickers
42
and while she was putting on her stockings she'd say something like,
"I hope you used one last nightIt's the worst day of the month for
me Then she'd sit in front of a mirror and start grumbling about her
aching head or her uncooperative make-up while she redid her lipstick
or attached her false eyelashesI would have preferred not to spend
the whole night with them, but you can't worry about a midnight
curfew while you're seducing women (which runs counter to the laws
of physics anyway), so I'd go out with an overnight passThis meant I
had to stay put until morning and go back to the dorm filled with selfloathing
and disillusionment, sunlight stabbing my eyes, mouth coated
with sand, head belonging to someone else
When I had slept louis vuitton duffle bag with three or four girls this way, I asked Nagasawa,
"After you've done this 70 times, doesn't it begin to seem kind of
pointless?"
"That proves you're a decent human being," he said
There is absolutely nothing to be gained from sleeping with one
strange woman after anotherIt just tires you out and makes you
disgusted with yourselfIt's the same for me
"So why the hell do you keep it up?"
"Hard to sayHey, you know that thing Dostoevsky wrote on
gambling? It's like thatWhen you're surrounded by endless
possibilities, one of the hardest things you can do is pass them upSee
what I mean?"
"Sort ofThe girls come out and drinkThey
wander around, looking for somethingI can give them that
somethingIt's the easiest thing in the world, like drinking water from
a tapBefore you know it, I've got 'em downIt's what they expect
That's what I mean by possibilityHow can you
ignore it? You have a certain ability and the opportunity to use it: omega seamaster for sale can
you keep your mouth shut and let it pass?"
"I don't know, I've never been in a situation like that," I said with a
43
smile"I can't imagine what it's like
"Count your blessings," Nagasawa said
His womanizing was the reason Nagasawa lived in a dorm despite his
affluent backgroundWorried that Nagasawa would do nothing else if
allowed to live alone in Tokyo, his father had compelled him to live
all four years at university in the dormitoryNot that it mattered much
to NagasawaHe was not going to let a few rules bother him
Whenever he felt like it, he would get an overnight permission and go
girl-hunting or spend the night at his girlfriend's flatThese
permissions were not easy to get, but for him they were like free
passes - and for me, too, as long as he did the asking
Nagasawa did have a steady girlfriend, one he'd been going out with
since his first yearHer name was Hatsumi, and she was the same age
as NagasawaI had met her a few times 2.55 chanel jumbo and found her to be very nice
She didn't have the kind of looks that immediately attracted attention,
and in fact she was so ordinary that when I first met her I had to
wonder why Nagasawa couldn't do better, but anyone who talked to
her took an immediate liking to herQuiet, intelligent, funny, caring,
she always dressed with immaculate good tasteI liked her a lot and
knew that if I could have a girlfriend like Hatsumi, I wouldn't be
sleeping around with a bunch of easy marksShe liked me, too, and
tried hard to fix me up with a first-year in her club so we could
double-date, but I would make up excuses to keep from repeating past
mistakesHatsumi went to the absolute top girls' college in the
country, and there was no way I was going to be able to talk to one of
those super-rich princesses
Hatsumi had a pretty good idea that Nagasawa was sleeping around,
but she never complained to himShe was seriously in love, but she
never made chloe paddington bags dema