“Takopachi,” she says.

It begins, as such things do, at a food stall amongst food stalls in a shopping centre in a city. It is an unremarkable stall, much like any other, in an unremarkable shopping centre, much like any other, in a city; well, cities are rarely like any other, which would make this city a city like any other, unremarkable by being remarkable.

In the midst of all this normalcy, this normality, I stand stunned. And who knows what is it about her? Her eyes? Her hair? Her voice?

I hold up a finger.

“One box,” she nods.

She collects the money that I don’t recall reaching for and stands at the cash register and I look at her and I look at her and I look at her.

I collect my change and she is looking behind me, and I turn to see that there is someone there.

“Takopachi,” she says, to the person behind me, and I am away from her attention.

It begins, as such things do, when a boy meets a girl, and buys from her a Japanese snack of a bit of octopus nested within a ball of dough.

For a week, and then another, I stand outside a shop pretending to look at what’s inside, while I look at the reflection in the glass. I wait until there are no customers in the takopachi stall, and then I go, I walk as briskly as I can, before someone else comes. I do this so that I can talk to her.

For a week, and then another, I do no more than order and pay. She doesn’t smile, and she never says a word that isn’t necessary to do her job.

For a week, and then another, I stand outside a shop pretending to look at what’s inside, while I look at the reflection in the glass. I feel like such a creep, such a monster. I do, as such things do, because I cannot do anything but.

Once, I found myself staring at her, in that magic moment after I pay and before she hands me my box, and I noticed that she was standing very still, holding my gaze, and then that moment passed.

I am sitting on my bed, in my room, staring down at a tentacle in a half-eaten ball, poking at it with a toothpick, and I see her face in my mind’s eye – passive and still – and it occurs to me that maybe she was as nervous as I was. That she wants me to talk to her. That she’s waiting.

As I look at my shadow, a tentacle wiggling in my mouth, I tell myself that tomorrow I will speak to her, say something, anything at all. My shadow hand pushes the shadow tentacle into my mouth, and I tell myself, tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and goes, and I do no such thing.

And I continue feeling like a creep, acting like a monster.

And it would have gone on, I think, until the day when I go there and she isn’t there anymore, and I will be disappointed, but I will still come back the next day, and then the day after that. I’ll keep coming back until the day I realise that she wouldn’t be there anymore. That I had lost her forever.

And it would have gone on, I think, in that hopeless dance of monstrosity. Because I lack that most human of abilities, to speak to someone who didn’t speak to me first. Because I am, at the last, a shadow of a human; a monster.

And it would have gone on, I think, except that one day I order two boxes instead of one. And then –

“Oh?” she says.

I nod, holding up a pair of fingers, “Two.”

She prepares the boxes, as she always does, with perfect hands and long fingers and a deftness my brain knows is practised but my heart calls grace.

She hesitates before she hands over the plastic bag with the boxes inside; it hangs in the air, behind the invisible barrier that separates buyer and seller, yet another imaginary wall that separates me from her. My hand pauses, in between reaching out and waiting, waiting.

“For your girlfriend?” she asks.

“Oh, no, I don’t have a girlfriend,” I say, and the words are out of me before I realise it; how easy it must have looked, how normal I must have sounded, how utterly human.

The bag is in my hand and the money is in hers and, again, the words come out of me before I realise it, “I’m just hungry. I missed dinner, last night, work, you know.”

“Oh,” she says.

She hands me my change and I turn to go and then, oh, she speaks again, “Hey.”

I turn.

“Don’t work too hard.”

She isn’t smiling, and neither am I. “You too,” I reply.

As I walk away, I see my reflection, and there, it turns out, is a smile.

The day after that, she smiles when she sees me, and I order, and I pay, and she hands me my change, and I turn to leave.

I am sitting on my bed, in my room. I open up the box and I look inside, and there –

“Oh,” I say, to no one, “Four balls. She gave me an extra.”

Even monsters must have hearts, I think, because, for some reason, I could hear mine beating.

The day after that, she smiles when she sees me, and I order, and I pay, and she hands me my change, and I turn to leave.

I am sitting on my bed, in my room. Was it a mistake, I wonder. When I open this, will there be four octopus balls? Or the usual three?

I hesitate before I open the box, hearing the beating of my monstrous heart. I want – I dearly dearly want – an extra octopus ball.

I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want this; this mundane, trivial thing.

The day after that, she smiles when she sees me, and I order, and I pay, and she hands me my change, and I turn to leave.

And I turn back.

And I say, “Is it okay if I eat it here?” I point at the tiny counter at the side of the shop, with its two little chairs. Nobody ever sits there. I always thought that nobody ever will.

“Yes, yes, of course. Please do.”

I am sitting on the chair, at the tiny counter, staring down at a tentacle in a half-eaten ball, poking at it with a toothpick, and I see her face in my mind’s eye – passive and still – and it occurs to me that maybe she was as nervous as I was. That she wants me to talk to her. That she’s waiting.

As I look at my shadow, a tentacle wiggling in my mouth, I tell myself that tommorow I will speak to her, say something, anything at all. My shadow hand pushes the shadow tentacle into my mouth, and I tell myself, “Tomorrow.”

“What? I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t hear you.”

“Oh, ehrm, you know. ‘Tako’ means ‘octopus’, so those bacon takopachi and chicken takopachi aren’t really takopachi.”

She must be so insulted, I realise, shocked at the words that have left me. Surely she knows that, she works here, after all. I must sound like such a show-off, talking to her as if she were a child. Stupid stupid stupid.

“Really?” she says, “I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, really.” I look up. She’s looking at me, as if she wants me to continue talking. Really?

“Err, that’s all I know.”

“So it’s like bacon-pachi and chicken-pachi?”

“I guess. I don’t think they have any other types in Japan, though. I think.”

“You must be really smart,” she smiles.

It begins, as such things do, when a boy meets a girl, and she’s impressed by something he doesn’t think is impressive at all.

The day after that, then the week after that, I am sitting and I stare at a tentacle in a half-eaten ball. It doesn’t take that long to finish a box of takopachi, even a box with an extra takopachi, and so I dawdle, I spin the balls around with my toothpick, I doodle with the teriyaki sauce.

And she talks. She talks a lot. She talks about the most mundane things, things of no significance to anybody, anybody but her. She talks about the things that she likes, and she likes a lot of things.

The day after that, then the week after that, I am sitting and I stare at a tentacle in a half-eaten ball.

And she talks. She talks a lot. She goes on and on and on.

“You don’t stop talking, do you?” I ask.

“No, I don’t,” she laughs, “I like to talk. What do you like? Besides takopachi?”

“I don’t like takopachi,” I say, “I mean, I used to, but I’ve been eating it everyday for…”

“Oh.”

The silence stretches out. I am sitting and I stare at a tentacle in a half-eaten ball.

“The days are long,” I finally say, just to kill the silence.

The silence does not die. But it is not really silent, because I can hear the beating of my heart.

So I speak again, “The days are long and full and there is so much to do and not enough time to do it in.”

She stands there, behind the counter, in her cute little uniform with a name-tag that says “J.J”, with only one period separating the letters. She’s looking at me with her intent eyes, wide and lucid.

“The days are long,” I say, “and this is the best part. It doesn’t matter if I don’t like takopachi. That doesn’t matter at all.”

And the silence stretches out.

“It matters,” she says. “I mean, you don’t have to… It matters. It does. I…”

And the silence stretches out. But, this time, I don’t have anything left to kill it with.

“I miss you,” she says. She pauses, she swallows, “The days are long and I miss you. I spend all day remembering what I want to tell you. Because the moment I stop talking is the moment you leave.”

“‘That is not dead which can eternal lie’,” I say.

“What does that mean?”

“You may think something is dead when it is only sleeping.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter, just something from a history book. Your name-tag,” I say, pointing at it, “why doesn’t it have two full stops?”

“It’s a face, see? Two eyes,” she points a finger at the J’s, then brings it up to her face, “and a little nose.”

She’s smiling now, with her pert little nose and her shining eyes.

I’m smiling too.

“I finish work at eight,” she says, “if you turn left from the escalator, there’s an exit, if you turn left again and follow the path, there’s a bus stop there. If I happen to run into a friend, I wouldn’t have to eat dinner alone.”

“The left hand path,” I say.

“Yes. I’ll stop talking now.”

It begins, as such things do, when a boy meets a girl, and she takes a step towards him, so that he can take a step towards her.

tl;dr

Women attach much significance to the first kiss.

When they doubt, that single kiss can break the coupling or spiral them towards certainty. And when they’re certain, that one kiss can disappoint them, or it can make them fall; completely, without reservation.

And how many universes are made, vastly different, each from the other, from the repercussions of a single kiss, lips upon lips, tongue upon tongue. An unborn genius or a born tyrant, entire lineages hanging upon a moment, upon a touch as light as the flap of a butterfly’s wings.

And that moment, itself, hangs upon something as mundane, as trivial, as, say, what one man has for dinner one particular night out of thousands.

Women are superstitious creatures, given to attach significance to insignificant events.

And, in giving an insignificant event significance, make it so. Lips upon lips, tongue upon tongue.

Not that this matters, because man is but an animal, and we kiss as such things do – With an open heart, hoping for the best.

She looks at me and she licks her lips and she is smiling.

“You,” she says, “taste of takopachi.”

“That’s not possible, I haven’t eaten it since–”

“You do, you do!”

“Well–”

“Let me make sure,” she says, and she kisses me again.

What is the quale of a kiss? Promise. A promise of a brighter, better future. A promise between a boy and a girl.

“You’re not human!” she squeals.

A bolt goes through my heart as I realise that she knows! She knows! Images of all the time I spent standing at the shops, waiting, looking at her. Looking? Stalking! I was stalking her like a creep, and she knows! She knows I’m not human.

But she is not pushing me away, she is not repulsed at my monstrous self. Instead, she is smiling.

“Dearest, you are a wonderful kisser,” she says, her eyes shining, “It feels… it feels almost like you have two tongues.”

Dearest, she says. Dearest?

“You must have two tongues,” she says, as her singular tongue licks across her lips, “let me make sure.”

She knows? And she does not care?

And her eyes are closed, still. And her lips are parted and glistening and I am looking at her.

Even monsters must have hearts, I think, because, for some reason, I could hear mine beating.

I am sitting on my bed, in my room, staring down at a wiggling finger. She is sitting behind me, leaning into me, and her palm is in my lap. Eight fingers are criss-crossed and four of them are hers. I look down at our open palms, our entwined fingers, and I wonder if this is okay, if it alright for me to have this.

Her head is on my shoulder and –

“Ouch!” I say, “did you bite me?”

“Uh-huh,” she whispers, and she bites my ear again.

I am sitting on my bed, in my room, staring down at a wiggling finger. Her fingers close around mine and she undrapes herself from my back and she lies down upon the bed.

“We’re entangled,” she says, as she pulls me onto her.

My face is in front of hers and I am looking into her liquid eyes.

And she talks. She talks a lot, “I like cotton candy. I want to sleep on a bed of cotton candy in an ant-free world.”

“You’re adorable,” I tell her.

And her eyes close and she pulls me towards her.

I kiss her again and I open my eyes.

And her eyes are closed, still. And her lips are parted and glistening and she says, “How do you feel about oral sex?”

“I like it?” I venture.

“Not receiving, I mean, giving,” she talks with her eyes shut, as if she were talking in her sleep, “Some men don’t like it. Something about fish.”

“Fish?”

“Fish. Little things, they like water.”

“I like fish.”

“Do you?”

“The dream of the fisherman.”

And her eyes are closed, still. And her singular tongue runs across her lips as her smile widens.

“You’re not human,” she says, as her eyes flash open and she pushes me away.

She is standing up, as I sit here, looking at the shadow of her as she walks out of the room.

This is my room; it is an empty room, in an empty house.

Not human, she says, as she pushes me away.

This is my room; it is an empty room, in an empty house. I didn’t think it was empty before, but it feels empty now.

I hear the sound of water rushing from the bathroom and it puzzles me. She said I wasn’t human and she pushed me away. She called me a monster and she walked away.

She walked away.

To the bathroom?

I look up at the door and she is standing there, and she is smiling.

She walks towards me and stops; just out of reach, her feet apart. She places her hands upon her thighs. Slowly, her hands move down her legs as her fingers fan out and turns, until they are pointing downward, smoothing her skirt. Her hands move until her thumbs reach the hem and her fingers curl backward, until she is holding the edge of her skirt. She begins to lift it.

“See,” she says, “ever since you kissed me, I’ve been wondering about something.”

And her skirt rises upwards, slowly.

She is standing in a pool of moonlight, and, dim though it is, I could see her clearly. From under her skirt – slowly, slowly rising – there are lines, lines of silver light.

“The thought is inside me,” she says.

Beneath her rising skirt, between her legs, lines of silver light, strange and marvelous.

“And the more I think about it…” she says.

And her skirt has stopped rising, but I am no longer looking at her skirt. The lines of silver light converge and I realise what they are.

“You’re dripping,” I say.

“Yes,” she says, “the more I think about it, the wetter I get.”

Her skirt drops across my vision and I look up at her face and she is smiling. She is smiling with the wrath of angels, full of glory and malicious certainty.

“Move,” she says, “I’m going to lie down now, and if you would please do one little thing for me?”

Her skirt falls to the floor and she steps over it and she is standing next to me.

“Move,” she repeats, and I do so.

She lies down upon the bed and her legs open and her hand is beckoning. “Please do,” she says.

“If fish,” she says, “is the dream of the fisherman, then what is the dream of the fisherman’s wife?”

It begins, as such things do, when lips and tongues collide.

I wake up in an empty bed in an empty room in an empty house. I didn’t think it was empty before, but it feels empty now.

I didn’t think my heart was empty before, but it feels empty now.

I remember – was it last night? How long have I been lying here? – her eyes widening. Her face is below mine and our fingers are entwined and her eyes are widening and her voice is higher, higher than it usually is, in a panic, “No, no, please, don’t!”

I remember her hands are clenching mine so hard it should have hurt, but there wasn’t any pain, and her body is threshing below me and she is pleading, “Don’t! Don’t hurt me, please!”

And her eyes are pressed shut and she is screaming. Screaming.

She is screaming and I am letting her. I am letting her scream. I am making her scream. I feel like such a creep, such a monster. I do, as such things do, because I cannot do anything but.

She is screaming until she has nothing left to scream with.

And her eyes are pressed shut and her head slams into my shoulder.

I wake up in an empty bed in an empty room in an empty house.

I didn’t think my heart was empty before, but it feels empty now.

She found out that I’m a monster and now she is gone.

I look about the room and it feels vast, so I close my eyes to stop the emptiness from stretching away.

Was it last night? How long have I been lying here?

I hear her voice, coming through the darkness, “I passed out,” she whispers.

She continues whispering, close to me, in the dark, “I’ve never done that before. In both holes at once.”

Her hands clench around mine, and she continues softly talking, “My ass feels so violated.”

I feel her nails running across the back of my hand, “Weren’t we holding hands? How did you…?”

And she talks. She talks a lot. My attention fades and the darkness comes and swallows me whole.

And she talks. She talks a lot, “You really aren’t human.”

I feel myself shudder and my eyes open. I feel her beneath me, I feel her lips against my cheek, and I see the shadow lengthening on the wall to the floor, far beneath her. She is floating.

Floating? No. The floor beneath her is the ceiling above me, the confines of an empty room, in an empty house.

I didn’t think my heart was empty before, but it feels empty now.

She found out that I’m a monster and now she is gone.

I look about the room and it feels vast, so I close my eyes to stop the emptiness from stretching away.

Was it last night? How long have I been lying here?

I hear her voice, coming through the darkness, “You sleep like the dead,” she says.

She is standing in the middle of the room, dressed in her blouse and holding a knife.

“Get up,” she says.

I sit up, slowly. It is a knife from my kitchen, with a long blade. I don’t think I have ever used it.

She looks me in the eyes and she says, “It’s too late.”

And she was right.

It is too late. Monsters do as such things do, but now, if I ever wanted to be human, then now. Now was the time to do as such things do.

I closed my eyes, willing myself not to move, for moving at all would be to hurt her. I never cook, the knife would be very sharp.

I recall all the time we had spent together, and each image of her is succeeded by one of me standing at a reflection, waiting, stalking.

I recall all the time we had spent together, and I was happy and it was a lie, because I am the lie. I am barely human, I am not human at all.

I recall all the time we had spent together, and all I can think about is that I am a monster. And the pain comes.

I never cook, the knife would be very sharp. But it’s not, it can’t be, because the pain is so great.

But I must not move.

I must not move.

I hear her voice, coming through the darkness, “Do you love me?”

“More than life itself,” I promise.

“I love you too,” she says.

It will be over soon.

“I love you,” she says, “so much that it hurts.”

And I feel something on my chest, right where the pain is, right where my heart is. “It hurts here,” she says.

I open my eyes to see her face right in front of me, tears rolling down her cheeks. I look down and there, where my heart is, is her hand, pressed hard against me. And if I could feel this pressure, this warmth, then…

“Knife,” I say.

“What?” she asks.

“The knife?”

“There,” she points at the table, where the knife sits.

I wasn’t sure I understood what is happening, but she is pressed against me and she is warm and she is beautiful.

“Stop crying,” she says, “You’re making me cry.”

“Okay,” I say, even though I wasn’t crying.

And she sticks out her tongue and she licks me across my cheek and she is standing, and she reaches for the knife.

“When I was young,” she says, “I was eating with my father and he asked me if I liked what I was eating. It was delicious, I said. He told me that it was one of his favourite foods. I asked him what it was, and he told me that he would tell me when I had finished. And when I did, he told me that it was a secret.”

She takes the knife and she pulls a thread from her blouse and she cuts it.

“And again and again,” she says, “I ate all sorts of delicious food that were secrets, delicious secret food, and he never ever told me what they were. He would give me food and I would eat it, year after year.

“See, I grew up, and he stopped hugging me, then he stopped holding my hand, and then he stopped calling me ‘princess’, but, always, always, when we were together, even when I was old enough to cook my own food, much less order it, he would still order for me, and I would still eat the secret food that he brought.

“It was our thing, it was the way I knew that he still loved me, that he always would.”

I sit upon the bed that was in the room that was full of her.

And she talks. She talks a lot, “Now, where I grew up, we had these stalls selling bits and pieces of things that people really shouldn’t eat; entrails and brains and snakes and scorpions. Genitals and things without genitals. One day, I was shopping with my father and I told him that it was disgusting what some people eat. He said, ‘It’s too late’, and then he laughed and he laughed and he laughed. He just couldn’t stop.”

The knife had no more meaning then what we ascribe to it. She puts it down upon the table where it sits, as such things do, inert, insignificant.

And she talks. She talks a lot, “What’s so funny, I asked him. Nothing, he said, nothing. And when we sat down to eat, he brought back a bowl of my favourite food. It’s the brain of a goat, he said. It turns out, all my life, all those years, I’ve been eating these really gross bits. Disgusting things. And I loved it. And if I had known what they were I wouldn’t have eaten them, and I wouldn’t have loved them. But it’s too late; I have, and I do.”

She pulls her blouse over her head and she climbs onto the bed, over me, bringing her face close to mine.

“You’re not human,” she says, pulling me into the pools of her eyes.

“I’m not.”

“I want you to remember what you did to me last night. It was disgusting, and what you did to me people shouldn’t do. Dearest, promise me you’ll remember.”

“I’ll remember.”

“It’s disgusting and it’s wrong.”

“It is.”

“But it’s too late and I love it. And it’s too late and I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Violate me,” she whispers, as her eyes close, and her lips meet mine.

As my eyes close, I see the wall behind her, where the shadow of a pair of tentacles move to embrace her.

Even monsters must have hearts, I think, because it seems that I have given mine away.

It begins, as such things do, as a promise, between a boy and a girl.

“Takopachi,” she says. “Isn’t that like, cannibalism?”